Days 16 & 17 – 30 Days of Biking

If you’ve not heard of it before, 30 Days of Biking is a personal challenge with a charitable edge. People pledge to ride their bike every day in April, and for every two that do, 1USD is donated to World Bicycle Relief. This year we have six riders attempting the challenge.

Day 16

It’s the weekend, and everyone went out to play. Did they have fun? Surely if it involved a bike, they must have, mustn’t they?

Adele

So, it’s a year this weekend since I broke the end off my left elbow after an at-speed handlebar/branch mountain bike interface misdemeanour. The result was two operations, weeks of no riding and months of recovery. But as you can see my arm is now in fully-functioning fine form, so today’s ride was about celebrating that fact (although the one-handed steering only lasted for as long as it took to snap this photo). P.S. Also, my foot isn’t really this tiny.

Giles

Woke up in Kielder Castle, on the floor of the Osprey exhibition to be precise, and by 7am I was on the start line with the Grit.cx crew ready for the Dirty Reiver. Twelve hours later I was back, 120 miles completed – nearly all off-road, over 12,000 feet of climbing, sun, hail, snow and around 400 other riders. Some call it gravel racing, I call it the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Greg

Oh I do like food, but I can’t chew food, or sleep, or breath through my nose. What better way to start a 200km ride around some of the best gravel roads in England and Scotland?

Dirty Reiver day – and it was always going to be a prep ride for the Tour Divide, combined with doing media coverage for an upcoming article in Grit.cx. So, I hauled myself, a DSLR and a few lenses, as well as my own body weight in gels around the course.

23 gels – two bottles of hyper concentrated sports drinks – some meal replacement drinks – and a f’k load of drugs later and I’d rode round on a wonderful day with some awesome people. It’s days like this that remind me not everyone is an ass. Finished, chatted, would happily have kept riding for another 6 hours or more. Box, ticked.

Now, how do I eat….oh yeah, soup for the next few days.

Hannah

Child recovering, so a roll down the hill for all of us, followed by a push back up the hill. It was sunny when we set off down the hill, by the time we got to the park it seemed we had all the possible skies above us at once. And on the way back up the hill it started to snow.

Lara

Spent all day surrounded by gorgeous hand built bikes at Bespoked. I was tempted to get my ride for the day by stealing one but instead went for a bimble in the sunshine to the pub once I got back home.

Rachel

Saturday was the road ride day of an extended weekend’s riding.  The parts between the driving sleet, hail and rain were really rather pleasant.  The fact that I had under-packed for such precipitation was not; summer gloves and shorts were just not up to the job.

Day 17

Adele

A great combination of sunshine and the Peaslake MTBO event meant there were lots of riders enjoying the local trails today. One of them, I am pleased to report, was me.

Giles

After the shock of yesterday’s Dirty Reiver, today I literally went once round the block. It still counts doesn’t it?

Greg

I can has bike ride? Legs felt fine, no issues post Dirty Reiver at all which is good in preparation for the Tour Divide. Went for a short spin about town as I had a lot to do – mostly involving cleaning bikes and dentists. Forgot to take any photos – so here is an Ewok doing pushups.

Hannah

Woke up to a lovely sunny day, and husband had returned from the Dirty Reiver, so I was free to ride a bike beyond the end of the street. Hard frost in the valley and a sprinkle of snow on the tops, all very sparkly in the sunshine.

Lara

Got up too late and missed my window for the hills not being covered in walkers so a lovely road ride in the sunshine was a good alternative. This cheeky chap either thought I had apples or has a finely honed appreciation for a good bicycle.

Rachel

After Saturday’s war of road attrition, I was looking forward to a day of off-road riding under blue April skies.  What I didn’t account for was quite how epic this ride turned out to be: moorland tramping, clay clagginess, stream-come-river crossings, one in four gradients, Yorkshire mud with Californian mud-clearance and not a tea shop to be seen.

The second half

And so we ride onwards into the second half of the month. Where we hope we see a little less snow and hail, and a little more warmth. Maybe even some leaves on the trees, a few buzzing insects and the first fledgings of the year. We’re over the hump, we’re on our way to May – which is really the start of summer, isn’t it? So, onwards to warmer days, drier trails, and rides that are longer than the time spent cleaning the bikes afterwards.

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