19th May 2013 - Bike Ride

The bike ride was longer than last week but not as long as I wanted.

Day started off rather lazily as the weather yesterday had been hot and I hadn't got a great night's sleep. Watched a few episodes of 'Death in Paradise'

About 1230 I decided I couldn't waste the entire day sat on me arse, so got ready for a bike ride. Didn't take long. Did decide to take some swimming goggles in case the water at either of the lakes was warm enough. Didn't bother with lunch. Just made sure I had water along as the weather was looking pretty hot.

About 30 mins in I got a flat after trying to traverse some pretty rough terrain. Don't think the tyres or the tube liked having my weight on them. After trying to inflate the tube in a stream for a few minutes I discovered a large hole. When I sat down again to dry it off ready for the patch I noticed there were two. Very odd as they were orthogonally opposite each other, on the sides of the tube. Thankfully I had all the tools with me to complete a repair. First time I think I've had to complete a repair on a track. Took me a little while to take it apart find and repair the holes, and then get things back together as I wanted to make sure nothing was left to make another hole. Got covered in chain oil from the back wheel as I got the tyre back on.

One thing that was an issue was the fact that I couldn't get the tube back up to the correct pressure using the small pump I had along. Caused a few sliding issues as the tyre couldn't maintain it's shape when it encountered holes, ridges etc. The tyre just rolled sideways down into the depression.

Just had to keep trying every now and again to get more pressure into the tube. At one point I actually thought the patches hadn't held. Might be an idea to see if there are other solutions. Maybe have to get a different, smaller sized tyre, or a better small pump.

I stopped once more to try and use the pannier rack as a support to help get more pressure in the tyre. Seemed to work and I wasn't in such a desperate hurry to head back home.

Thought I'd go via the large lake to see if the temperature was high enough to risk swimming.
No it bloody wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination. Give it a couple of weeks maybe.

It was quite busy around the lake. I haven't found a quick or particularly easy way of getting there. It still amazes me the amount of physical exercise the Norwegians simply take for granted. I hardly ever see any but the very smallest of kids being carried. They walk.

I took lots of video from the headcam but they all turned out to be fairly crap as the camera was angled down too low. Will need to come up with some way of making sure it doesn't happen as often. Would've been nice to have it all nicely done. Have uploaded one of them from the long drop down towards the end of the run to my YouTube account at http://youtu.be/wzZe3o6QJho

Look at the viewranger route etc at 

Towards the end of the ride I decided to head into town rather than straight back to the apartment. I met Hans-Herman at the Baracoa and had a couple of Murphy's. The temperature was very hot at this point. After that I came back home and fired up the BBQ while I took a shower.

I have now come to the conclusion that I need some sort of cloud based archive as I now have so many devices that it's hard keeping track of where stuff is going.

Saturday 11th May 2013 - Cycle around the lakes!

Went out for a bike ride today to see if I could get back into the hills.

I had planned to go via the small lake nearby and do the reverse of the route I did at the end of last year. For some reason cannot find the blog entry I'm sure I wrote about it. Could've sworn it was in Sept/Oct 2012 but cannot seem to find it anywhere. Might have to reinstate it from letters etc.

The weather didn't look that hot but was reported to be 15°C at a local display.

First thing I found was that the head-cam or the bike mounted GPS weren't charged. Most annoyed at that. Looks like they don't hold their charge very well. Next time will have to make sure the kit is charged the night beforehand.

The ground is still quite wet after the rain the previous night and also the ice/snow melt. Makes the mud awful sticky and hard to get through. I'm sure my weight isn't helping at all.

The local lake has all but defrosted. Thin layer of ice in the sheltered sections of the shore line was all I could see.

The streams are quite full at the moment.

Just as I got to the bottom of the first climb I had to take off one of the tops I'd put on, otherwise I'd be sweating (a lot more than normal).

There was a sign saying that open flames were not allowed in the woods between April & September. Bang goes my attempt at starting a small fire.

From the descent last time I knew the ascent this time would be quite steep. Too bloody right. Lowest gears all the way and the front wheel was lifting on some of the steep sections.

In some sheltered sections I could see some ice and snow still on the tracks.

I didn't see many people out at all. 1 guy on a bike coming down and then 2 more at the first location I took a panoramic picture. You need to look at it using the photosphere software.


The sun was in and out, which is why the panorama looks a little dark in places. Took a while to sit down here to recover from the climb.

On leaving the scenic spot, complete with fire places, I had a choice of two directions to head in. Either up or down. As I wasn't sure where down would go I headed up, the route I was pretty certain would lead me round the old missile installation.

And indeed it did. The mud was as thick as ever and the boardwalk was still in position.


I met another cyclist coming round anti-clockwise as I went clockwise. He looked a lot more comfortable than I did.

When I got to the second lake the sun was out but the wind was also up. I stopped at exactly the same location as last time for a snack of boiled egg and an orange. Very nice spot to rest it was too.

 

After leaving here I saw only a few other souls. It was generally uphill climb from here to the farm buildings at Solli.

On one of the few short lived downhill sections there was ice on a corner which wasn't quite solid. The front wheel suspension went in and caused the wheel to dig in and stop. I had to leave the bike quickly as I was too knackered by this point control it properly. I managed to stay on my feet but could have quite easily gone down the slope into a tree.

The signposts were telling me I had approx 3.5km to get to Solli and the farm buildings. I was hoping the cafe would be open to get a warm drink.

The rest of the track towards the farm buildings was generally uphill. The conditions got very sticky in places. Really was looking forward to the road down because I don't think I'd be able to cope too well with a bumpy track.

As I got towards the end the weather started to close in.

The cafe was closed by the time I got there. Didn't find a sign saying what times they were open so it could've been shut since last summer!

I had a small rest before putting a waterproof top and some gloves on, as the temperature was dropping and the rain was starting to fall. Didn't want to get a chill as I tore down the hill at warp factor 4!

Only took a few minutes to get down the hill. There were a couple more uphill sections which I didn't remember from last time but these were conquered pretty easily, despite the knees complaining.

Bit surprised that my GPS logging pebble didn't record the track for the first 2/3 of the track today. Very odd considering it supplied data to the Nexus4 for the ViewRanger app all the way round!?