Category Archives: Cycling

Best Cycle Ever

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On Monday I cycled home from work, and it turned out to be the best ride I have ever had! Nothing was planned any differently, so I was expecting a normal ride home from work, but when it started snowing about an hour before I left work, I started to hope that it would snow whilst I was cycling home, and it did!

It had stopped completely before I left work and when I set off it was drizzling. But as I cycled down the road, the drizzle started to turn into the odd flake of snow.  About five minutes later it was snowing properly, and it wasn’t just a few flakes or light snow either, it was a full on blizzard! It was magical!!

After struggling to see whilst cycling, due to the massive sized snow flakes and the frequency of them, I stopped on several occasions on my way home to take some photographs on my phone, hoping the phone wouldn’t get too wet, and also a couple of videos, as I saw it as a once in a lifetime event. The photographs didn’t turn out great as my breath was showing due to the temperature decreasing rapidly during the blizzard! It made the photos have a ghostly feel to them! But the videos came out OK.

I ended up cycling home on one of my slightly longer routes which took me past the outskirts of Roborough Village and along a woodland road/path, with great views of Dartmoor. It was great to see the fields and path covered in snow, and everything was so white and bright. As we don’t have much snow in Plymouth, I tried to take as much of it in as I could, so rode slower than usual, also because I was worried that where I cycled was getting slippery with the snow building up on it as we had had very cold weather already which had been causing icy conditions.

When I got home I felt that it was a great ride but was over way too quickly, but it was also one that I will never forget! 😉

Here are some of the (not great) photos I took on my phone.

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Here are three videos of the various stages of the snow cycle.

1 – Just after the snow started to come down thick.

2 – Blizzard conditions (for Plymouth).

3 – Looking out over the snow fields of Woolwell towards Dartmoor in the misty distance.

150th Cycle Of The Year

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This morning I did my 150th cycle of the year! This is a lot for me and the most in a year yet, but there are still a few more weeks until my Christmas Holiday starts, so I should be able to get a few more rides in yet! 😉 It wasn’t a very interesting ride (see below), just to work as normal in the morning, but they all count!

For you stats lovers (myself included) here are my stats for the year so far, now that I have hit 150 rides.

Cycles – 150

Distance – 482.7 miles

Time – 49 hours 47 minutes

Elevation Gain – 25,486 feet

100th Cycle Of The Year

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Today I did my 100th cycle of the year! It was nothing spectacular, just a normal ride into work! The weather was lovely and cool – perfect conditions for cycling really. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any records and my chain came off about 5 minutes into the ride, so I had to stop and re-attach it. After that, the gears seemed much better though, which was great!

For my 100th cycle, I hit 328.9 miles for the year, which is the most I have done on any of the bikes I have had. Am hoping to easily hit 400 miles by the end of the year and hopefully 150 rides! I have also ridden for 34 hours and 33 minutes this year and had an elevation gain of 17,720 ft.

Here are the stats for my 100th ride of the year –

So keep visiting my blog to see when I reach the next target! 😉

1st Cycle To Clearbrook

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Last Saturday I made my first trip to Clearbrook and back, on my bike. I enjoyed it very much as the weather was sunny and not too cold, and I took my time to take in the scenery as I cycled along. Here is the cycle recorded on Strava.

The upward trip to Clearbrook was interesting as once I had gone through the tunnel on Drake’s Trail (which wasn’t as dark as previous), there was a sign up to say that the cycle path was closed ahead due to a fallen down tree. So I had to leave the path and go on the road and up the steepest hill you can imagine! It was hellish and I couldn’t ride up at all, so had to push the bike up the majority of it! It wasn’t just me though as some road bikers up ahead had to push their bikes up as well and they were clearly fitter than me! Once I got to the top, I had to have a bit of a rest as was dead on my feet. Once I had recovered though, I made my way along the road and cycled down into Clearbrook, stopping outside of the village hall for a rest, an energy drink and some biscuits. The sun was shining and I have to say that it was a lovely scene (photographs can be seen below).


After about 15-20 minutes, I got up and started on the journey home. It only took about 40 minutes to get to Clearbrook, which was a lot less time than I thought it would be, so I knew roughly how long it would take me to get home. I let Kelly know I was on my way back and set off. The trip home was eventful as, whilst I was probably going along at my top speed, a big dog jumped out at me on the cycle path and I ended up skidding for about 2 metres and only just missing it! The owner could only grunt and didn’t apologise at all so I wasn’t best pleased, especially as my rear brake had locked so I had to give it a bit of a kick to get it loose again! Wasn’t happy at all!

When I had made it back to Bickleigh, and was just cycling up the hill towards Roborough, I heard an Owl hooting in the trees nearby. I decided to stop and turn around, so cycled back to where I had heard the noise. I waited and listened for several minutes, and even tried to make some hooting noises of my own, but couldn’t see or hear an owl anywhere. In fact the only birds I saw were a Jay and a Wood Pigeon. I have a feeling it flew off just as I stopped the bike to turnaround, as I think I caught a glimpse of a large bird fly off out of the corner of my eye. Shame really as it would have been really cool to see a wild Owl, especially as it was mid-morning and they wouldn’t normally be out and about at this time.


All in all, it was an enjoyable first trip to Clearbrook, and I am looking forward to doing it again and possibly even further up to Yelverton!