What's the most memorable bike ride you've ever been on?
For me, it's probably my first proper night ride.
My usual local route, but wow it was something completely different.
The first bit through the woods with the steep bits was great, exhilarating and not as creepy scary as I was expecting 🙂
What on earth is that shape bounding through the field in the distance? Must be a deer... there's no deer here, surely?
Then along beside the river for a while, nice and cool, watch where you're going!
Was that really a deer I saw?
Um, forgot this path went past the graveyard, it's fine, let's go a little faster for, er, the exercise... !!! a white hand reaching up from that grave !!! Cue two simultaneous thoughts: 1) Aaargh 2) Seriously? That's so cliché...
No wait, it's a bunch of white flowers nodding in the wind. I knew that all along.
It can't have been a deer. But what else is that big and jumps like that? Giant night squirrel?
Here we are, a nice wide cycle path through Drinkwater Park. Ooh look, eyes on the path up ahead. Rabbit? No, fox. No it's a bit big, hope it's not some large dog on the loose... Deer! More deer! Yes seriously, deer on the path, omg omg omg I've lived here 20 years and never knew deer lived so close.
They just shuffle to the side and stare at me as I go past. Couple of little roe deer. Amazing.
Now we're onto the proper singletrack, blue trail for me, the red jump line is pushing it for my first (solo) night ride.
I come to a normally fairly boring corner, slightly uphill, and wow:
The grass is slightly frosty. As I come round out of the bushes my lights hit the grass and whoosh, it's like it catches fire in low eerie greenish/blue ghostly flames all around me, one of the most incredible sights I've ever seen.
Back home a slightly different route, though it includes the graveyard again... I speed up and don't look at the flowers because, ahem, it's boring. I've already seen that.
My local bimble ride has transformed into something special.
Runner up is probably my first 'proper' mtb ride, all the classics around Ladybower area with a group from the old MBR forum. Main memorable moment is surviving down the Beast only to get horrific arm pump on the smoother bit at the bottom and crashing into an ungainly heap in the middle of the path, trapped in the resulting tangle with my bike and having to be rescued. Pretty sure northernmatt from here was on that ride.
Yes I know I cheated slightly and included two rides!
Most memorable are usually not the ones that go well, but build the most character.
A couple that spring to mind are:
The Hayfield ride I did with FlattyresMTB where the ambient temp was -5 Celsius (-15 with windchill). Had a direct a family of four back down the hill after they pointed 180 degrees in the wrong direction and asked "Is that Kinder Scout over there?" After getting changed it took me a good 15 minutes to stop shaking so hard I couldn't drive.
The Mynd ride where I pinch flatted tubed tyres 4 times on the first descent then twice more on Minton Batch. My buddies convinced me of the need to go tubeless after that.
Our regular Wednesday ride during the 'Beast From the East'. -8 Celsius on the car thermometer, but grippy snow!
^^^
That was 3, sorry!
On my 70th birthday.I rode the Tourmalet up from Luz St Sauveur and included the diversion onto the old original route (Voie Laurent Fignon).
Featured in this video http://thecolcollective.com/col-collection/col/col-du-tourmalet
A wonderful day as we rose out of the low cloud covering Luz St Sauveur. I rode with a lovely lady who knew the route and paced me up perfectly.
The sad bit is that she passed away about a year afterwards.
2 standouts for me both suffered with @nobbingsford.
A 'Derek (the bastard) Purdy' route in Northumberland taking in the delights of the Border ridge (including comedy lost shoe in bog moment for @nobbingsford, a mountain refuge hut (with a sign suggesting in the event of mortar fire to put your head between your legs...you know the rest 😂), in the middle of winter, and most definitely suffering exposure and mild hypothermia - funny how warm you feel when you close your eyes.
The other was a route out of MBR in Feshiebridge, most notable for getting lost many many times (common for us) and the comedy moment of me stepping off the pedals and sinking crotch deep in a bog.
For some reason I can only think of 'adventures.'
Also known as rides where I made really bad stubborn decisions, normally on my own.
First is on holiday in Bright, Victoria in 2018. Amazing tracks. Kids too young to ride, so I had negotiated a couple of hours with SWMBO and thought i'd be able to get a good ride in and a sneaky post-ride brew at the local (very good) brewery
Rather than pedal down the road to the park i thought i'd have more fun crossing through the forestry and could see some Strava segments heading up the nearest valley. From there i'd cut across to the DH World Cup track.
Strava segments were a bit old and overgrown... some had disappeared with logging operations. Got a bit lost for a while as a result.
Then I found the track I was looking for to connect. It was beyond steep. A 150m near vertical scramble ensued, impossible to carry the bike. Littered with broken motorbike clutch/brake levers. Later I discovered I have 4th place on a segment called "This is not a MTB trail" (1.1km/h) and 3rd on "Whose idea was this?"
After that nightmare I was running out of time for a pint so I absolutely spanked it back down the hill on one of my all time favourite tracks Shred Kelly's Revenge.
I guess the right answer to that question is the ride that first comes to mind when you read the question?
So... It has to be... A Skiddaw loop on an August summer evening 2016. First solo big mountain ride. Up the bridleway from Keswick and down Ullock pike. Beautiful clear evening. No one else on the mountain once a single fell runner had passed me on his way down as I got to the top of the switchbacks. Losing myself sitting on the summit just looking at the landscape and listening to a single unknown songbird tootling away nearby before the sweetest ridge line descent I've ever ridden (despite the odd stop, get off, look and 'not sure that'll go' moment).
The standard by which all other 'natural' rides are now judged. they usually come up short...
Easy. The 210 or so miles I rode one July from Oxford to Bude in one day. Left in the dark at 4:30am or something, arrived on the beach in Cornwall at sunset, in the rain. It was epic. The weird thing was arriving at the B&B and virtually being able to replay the whole ride back in my mind, remembering every corner, hill and junction over 200 miles of windy lanes and A-roads between Oxford and Bude. It really did seem like quite a long way...
Never done anything like it since, nor will I ever again.
The best day on my big bike ride last summer perhaps. The last big climb to get out of the mountains and down to the coast in northern spain. One of those days we do it for when it all came together
The climb was not too steep or long, sunny but not melting hot. Lovely scenery that reminded me of yorkshire in a way
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I stopped near the top and scattered some of Julies ashes
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And a lovely descent.Not too steep but nice and fast. Best descent of the entire ride
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Had to stop for a beer at the bottom
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Two from many years ago
The first was when we accidentally rode up Hard Knot pass, the second a glorious day in the lakes where it impossibly seemed to be downhill all the way.
I also rode up Alpe d’Huez, but all I really remember is how much it hurt.
Cross fell in August, it snowed, and galed and rained and we nearly froze to death, was in about 1997.
Oh and the time I got lost touring in Solvenia and ended spending the night at a nudist camp in Austria
4 Seasons Fred Whitton. My first century thought there was walking up Hardknott. Undertaken on a warm spring day with a sadly departed friend (fell off the crag after completing a winter climb last February).
It definitely was a good effort and I helped a sheep free from a fence on the Keswick Road.
I was going to say C2C in a day. it was an epic day out on the bike and I seemed to be getting stronger as the day went on (relative to everyone i was with) but then I remembered Mallorca.
First time riding in Mallorca...we started in pollenca, out to the col de batalla, down and up collaber (almost have me in tears its so pretty and so bloody hard) then a decent of puig major, up and over soller and back along the orient. the most awesome of days out on a (road) bike.
toss up;
madrid to bilbao to slough
walls of Xian on a trip to china, realised how much i'd missed riding bikes
Andalucia/Orgiva with a mate... We went out on a group ride with 30+ locals... after 10 miles they dropped us and we went 'wandering' down some ace rocky trails, fast mountain roads, gravel paths and several hours later ended at a bar... Life was ace and we had a few beers.. It was an epic week in honesty with Davey who used to promote his MTB business on here, but no longer does them and mostly rides roady stuff.
Some of the funniest times had in a bar with him and mate, he's speaking Spanish with the broadest manc accent known in the universe... the looks on the locals faces were priceless.
Rapha Manchester to London in 2019. I'd done it 2 years before and really struggled. Went in to this with almost no bike training but a shed load of running as I had a marathon not long after. Never have I felt so strong on a bike, flew up the climbs, pulled fast groups along on the flat and it all felt effortless. The weather was awesome and it was just a magnificent day on the bike.
The one which ended with a MRT callout, a helicopter, long enough memory loss to forget I invited him, the London Marathon and filming for BBC 999 programme...
Probably the time I was having a lazy day in a lodge in Whistler, when the head guide asked if I was up for a late afternoon adventure with him and his mate.
Got the last lift up, pushed up to Khyber Pass (this was before Top of the World existed, so Khyber was a 40-50min push), rode Khyber Pass, Babylon by Bike, See Colors and Puke, then I can't remember what we rode after that, but all I remember is all we could make out in the reducing daylight was the occasional shiny root, as we rolled in to Dusty's in Creekside.
Ordered a pitcher of beer, and three racks of ribs.
Guide checked in with his boss, and the boss came and collected us, which saved us the pedal back to the lodge.
1) 1995: Four months spent cycling 6000 miles round Britain and Ireland.
Otherwise, it's a lifetime of memories but I am going to propose a night ride in February 2021.
Heavy snow on the local hill. It was tempting to turn back but we kept going and still survived.
Alp D’Heuz including by the balcony ride. Followed by loads of pizza, beer and wine. Life was simply perfect.
Its a toss up betweem the first time I went over to the boarder to Swiss from Morzine for the view
or after 4 years of planning and covid finally getting to do the West Highland way in March this year. Perfect weather no wind to speak of and a balmy 15oC
Late afternoon in January descending Jacob’s ladder in a thunder and lightning storm in very dark conditions. The strobe of each bolt of lightning revealed another biker in the midst of falling off. It was hilarious and terrifying all at the same time. Nowhere to hide or ride it out, so we all just tried to ride it.
My first ever descent of Cheddar Gorge in what can only be described as a monsoon during my first ever Exmouth Exodus. It was like riding into a wet hyperspace window. Bonkers!
Probably the one I did yesterday. Headed up up to Loch Einich with Mrs BB and our 22mth old daughter. We headed up over the lumpy bit, up towards the loch, but mini-BB started to get a bit antzy, so we stopped about 1km short, had a snack and headed back. We took the single-track back and mini-BB and Mrs BB loved it. The joyous sounds coming from mini-BB were brilliant.
The WeeRide we have is great for mini-BB, she has now christened my old bike as 'her Bike', which is great. It's meaning I get out more on the bike and I'm sure carting her around is helping my fitness!
Blair Atholl - holiday with family but took the bike, went out early doors and did the loop around the edge of the big house, 2hrs solo in great weather with great scenery, saw an eagle. did the thing where you think you are lost but you aren't really, then found myself back on the path where I recognised 🙂
Ace.