Pictures of rides

[Wanlock Dod]

It's good to see the tower, I remember that it was always too windy to stay for long. I don't remember any way up there apart from the steep hill from Quernmore, I sometimes used to go for a ride up it at the weekend if I was finding Bowerham hill heavy going on the way back from college.

[Cugel]

It's good to see the tower, I remember that it was always too windy to stay for long. I don't remember any way up there apart from the steep hill from Quernmore, I sometimes used to go for a ride up it at the weekend if I was finding Bowerham hill heavy going on the way back from college.

Jubilee Tower has long been a favourite training item amongst the local bike clubs. We used to have a time trial up it that began at Williamson's Park and came back after Jubilee was summited the first time, via Abbeystead then back up and down Jubilee via the side road. Horrible, it was - especially if your 2 minute man was some 5 stone sprog that breezed past on the steepest bit. And there was the last climb out of Conder bottom back to the park.

It also has it's dangerous bits - the black-arrow double bend Z as you come down to Quernmore, which bend is clad with one of those steel crash barriers. I recall a novice female cyclist losing it on those bends and ripping herself along the crash barrier, savaged by it's large bolt heads. We thought she was dead as it was very bluddy. Happily not; and even the scars where it tore her cheek half away faded in time. The crossroads in Quernmore itself are also a danger, as the incautious might go through at 40mph and be caught by a pottering Sunday driver going across the junction without really looking for the likes of 40mph cyclists. I've seen near misses and heard of hits.

Cugel

[Marcus Aurelius]

Here are a couple of snaps taken on a couple of my favourite routes recently.

[al_yrpal]

The Chiltern beechwoods are stunning today… As I was taking this I could hear a rutting Muntjak and then bizzarely a tawney owl hooted.