Strava: The film

Strava KoM

I recently wrote about a love hate relationship with Strava.  The app that bikes back doesn’t want to go away.

Some try to sue them, love, some hate, but it’s not quite like Marmite – as we all seem to love and hate it a little bit. A little bit like real racing, we love it when it goes well. We hate getting beaten.

But perhaps most significantly, it does seem to change the way the more competitive-minded of us go about our training rides.  Even on a nice day.  So the other week, I made a short film.

Can be watched in HD here.

The last bike ride of my thirties

So this is the end of my thirties. Today. That’s it after today – tomorrow, I’m middle-aged. Hurrah! (well – did you think I’d be bothered??)

In more of an attempt to wangle a good day out than anything else, Matthew invited me to a day’s leave Mountain biking, well in advance of today (largely because of a technical glut of annual leave he had to take) so when the snow came back earlier this week, we both knew we were in for fun.

We met up in Holcombe at 9:15 this morning and what followed was one of those very memorable outdoor trips. I’ve been out in the snow a bit lately on the road bike, cross bike and even on the Mountain Bike, but have obviously avoided full on open fell riding – simply because there just hasn’t been the time (all the other rides could be done under the guise of ‘training’ or getting the children to school / nursury). Today’s ride was in the name of adventure and fun. It certainly lived up to that.

The fact that we covered a total of 18 miles in 3 hrs of riding sums it up really. What amounts to a good healthy walking pace on most summer days was a pretty full on MTB adventure round Holcombe and Entwhistle in what varied between hard-packed icy snow (at best) and foot deep snow-wading and bike carrying in the cold midwinter sunshine.

The ride was fun, and was topped off by a lovely few pints at the Shoulder of Mutton and a sarnie with chips, before a quick shower and then a chance to pick Lily up from school (on the trailer bike) and an hour or so of sledging, later on.

I hope my forties are this good. Stay tuned.

Mobile crappy photos below