I left home at 9.15 yesterday morning and headed out to Yelverton via Tavistock. It's a long slog up through Horrabridge up to Yelverton and on a busy road too. From Yelverton, I dropped down through Meavy then up a massive hill onto Lee Moor on the outer fringes of Dartmoor. This hill is awful! It goes on and on and on, and when you think you must be at the top, it goes on a bit more!
From there, the road bobs along through moorland with sheep and ponies all about, and then I dropped down to Lee Mill via Cornwood and took the Old A38 through Plympton and then the busy city roads into the centre of Plymouth. I rode through the city to The Barbican area to grab a spot of lunch. It was about 1pm by then and I'd completed 32 miles. I was hungry!
I called in at Cap'n Jaspers, a fast food kiosk on the water front at Whitehouse Pier. It's a long-standing business originally started back in 1978. The new kiosk 'only' dates back to 1997. It's a fantastic place, and they sell all manner of burgers with all manner of fillings. I went for a Whitehouse Wonder - quarterpounder with mushrooms, bacon and tomato. Yum! I washed it down with two mugs of tea.
Then I was off again, through the city streets and over into Devonport past the Naval Base and up through St Budeaux and onto the Tamar Suspension Bridge and crossed into Cornwall. By then, I'd covered 38 miles.
Out through Saltash town centre climbing the steep Fore Street and onto the busy A388 for Callington. Turning off the main road just north of St Mellion, I joined the Old A388 for a while and climbed and climbed and climbed.
I turned right as I reached the outskirts of Callington and continued to climb as I headed for home along the A390.
That's it 52 miles! I made it home at 3.20, making it a shade over 6 hours for the total journey.
I need to repeat this ride, well not actually the same one, I'll find another long ride perhaps 60 miles and see how I get on.
The Chopper? It was perfect. The new rollerbrake worked well and progressively. I had no qualms about descending hills - my maximum speed was 38mph!
Busy over the next week, so stand by for another thrilling instalment in early March.
52 miles on a Chopper?!?! Now, I'm no athlete, but that sounds like hard enough work on a road bike, especially given the terrain, but to do it on a 1970s industrial steel contraption with no other purpose in life but to "look a bit cool" is a tremendous achievement. Now, before I finish filling in these forms to have you committed, are you sure you want to JOGLE this thing? :-/
ReplyDeleteYes, I am going to do it.
ReplyDeleteDaft, I know!
No-one has ever ridden a Chopper from End to End before, and I'm going to be the first!
Hard enough work eh?
I have a Garmin Edge 705 and had it clipped to the handlebars. I upload my rides into an application called Ascent. The program shows the profile of the ride and how many calories I've consumed. For the 51.9 miles, I consumed 5,071 calories. Perhaps I may loose some weight?
Thanks for checking in.
Regards,
Mick.