2023 - Our Rides in Words, Photos, Maps and Videos

Stefan Mikes said:
That backpack-pannier would fit many bottles! Only I was afraid to break too many of them in case of a crash :)
"Herod" is only brewed once a year before Xmas. Had no chance to buy it in December last year!


That extremely funny grotesque about the life under Communism in 1970s is "Teddy Bear" (Miś) by Stanisław Bareja (1981). Unfortunately I could not find a version with English subtitles on YT :(

The scene from a fast-food bar. Turn the CC on for English subtitles!

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The idea that metal plates could be screwed to the table, and the spoons could be connected with a chain (as not to steal the utensils) was so funny that you can find "Teddy Bear stylized" eating places in Poland today! :) (Here, a fast-food bar in Wrocław
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Special for Stefan Mikes:
 
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ChezCheese:) said:
Special for Stefan Mikes:
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Thank you, Chez!
It is interesting these two sing in really decent Polish, even if you can hear a foreign accent! "Mam cię w dupie" translates to "kiss my ass" :D
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Now, what a day...
I cancelled Netfix (too expensive and nothing for me there) but took a subscription of the Polish service instead. This Saturday, I rode to Magda to setup the TVN Player for her and to log in there. It was simply cold on the ride. Far worse was the message I could see on my Highway Star display...

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Vado 6.0 is a Euro moped by law, and as such, it requires having an operating display at all times during the ride. In case you let the button battery inside the display go flat, the assistance will be cut off! I opened the display, and with bad feelings I discovered the battery in question was the rare CR1220.

After seeing Magda, I pedalled to the next electronic store in my neighbourhood to find out the 1220 was of course unavailable. I gave another store a phone call: No 1220 either. After returning home, I gave my drawers a thorough inspection. And...

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You wouldn't believe that! I found a spare CR1220 there! Exactly two years ago, I replaced the Vado display battery and had a spare, too. Magically, the tiny battery survived the fire of my house and landed at the bottom of one of my drawers! My Vado rides are saved! :)

P.S. 54 km on that unpleasantly cold day.
 
we did 28 miles today it looked like rain so we dressed that way no rain I had to stop and put on lighter gloves and remove my rain pants.
we came to this offramp where we have to press the Button to cross or wait till its clear. I stopped about 3 feet from the road but this car I guess thought I was going to cross and stops fast and the pickup behind him didn't to see or was too close slammed on their brakes and nicked the back the car. People often stop when they have the right of way and cause issues too. went to the fancy part of town. the house on the hill has that small stream slash rock waterfall running right beside it. that would be cool in spring the statue is a owl and a lemming. and thats about all I get out of it. loved the tree trunk looked so fake as it was so smooth.

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fooferdoggie said:
we did 28 miles today it looked like rain so we dressed that way no rain I had to stop and put on lighter gloves and remove my rain pants.
we came to this offramp where we have to press the Button to cross or wait till its clear. I stopped about 3 feet from the road but this car I guess thought I was going to cross and stops fast and the pickup behind him didn't to see or was too close slammed on their brakes and nicked the back the car. People often stop when they have the right of way and cause issues too. went to the fancy part of town. the house on the hill has that small stream slash rock waterfall running right beside it. that would be cool in spring the statue is a owl and a lemming. and thats about all I get out of it. loved the tree trunk looked so fake as it was so smooth.

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Love the look of that Arbutus, Foofer. Very catching.
 
Graveloza Kampinos Classic

I know my limitations. I know my bad left foot will freeze out during a frost ride. For this reason, I chose to ride the "Kampinos Classic" group ride with my club only for 60 (not 85) km on Sunday. Why should I ride through Warsaw if I could start the ride closer to the essence of gravel cycling, that is, closer to the Kampinos National Park? So I drove up the "Bicycle Stable", an LBS very popular among MTBers, and my plan was to intercept my Club group ride there. (I started with replacing the CR1220 battery in my Highway Star, of course).

While I was waiting for the group, I was freezing next to the Bicycle Stable. Suddenly, I could see a huge group of gravel cyclists mixed with MTBers riding at high speed. I turned Turbo on and was pursuing my Club group ride for 10 kilometres! :)

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The actual aim of the trip was to have a lunch at the "Inn At The Trail", a biker friendly restaurant in Palmiry. First, we started counting the bikes...

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Later, I started counting people. There are 16 people in the picture. Some Adrian must have been visiting the loo at the time as I know it was seventeen of us! :D (A GoPro photo, not mine).

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My brother Jacek had attended the ride, too. He likes simple beer. He had the "Kampinos Beer" brewed in another brewery in Błonie (not Artezan). I attest that Lager was just delicious (only tasted a sample as I was riding a "moped", haha).

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Tomek Dee was the co-author of the route (he did a test ride and planned the route on Saturday!) This time, he was late for the ride and tired. He had to pursue the group all the way to the restaurant!

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One of the full Club members Patryk (left) decided it was wrong the whole group should ride at the high speed of the Performance Group (7 people). He had established the Adventure Cycling Group of 10 people ad hoc :) We were happy to ride at slower speed. See the cobblestone: we had to ride a long forest cobblestone road segment. How jealous I was that my brother could ride his full suspension wide tyre e-MTB there! He of course showed off by riding that segment at the highest speed and yelling: "This e-bike was just made for this road!" :D

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3 km before my private finish line my left foot had enough. I said good-byes to my mates and took a rest. Meanwhile, the temperature dropped to -3 C, the wind started howling, and it was snowing a little...

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My ride map & metrics.
 
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Stefan Mikes said:
Graveloza Kampinos Classic

I know my limitations. I know my bad left foot will freeze out during a frost ride. For this reason, I chose to ride the "Kampinos Classic" group ride with my club only for 60 (not 85) km on Sunday. Why should I ride through Warsaw if I could start the ride closer to the essence of gravel cycling, that is, closer to the Kampinos National Park? So I drove up the "Bicycle Stable", an LBS very popular among MTBers, and my plan was to intercept my Club group ride there. (I started with replacing the CR1220 battery in my Highway Star, of course).

While I was waiting for the group, I was freezing next to the Bicycle Stable. Suddenly, I could see a huge group of gravel cyclists mixed with MTBers riding at high speed. I turned Turbo on and was pursuing my Club group ride for 10 kilometres! :)

View attachment 145775
The actual aim of the trip was to have a lunch at the "Inn At The Trail", a biker friendly restaurant in Palmiry. First, we started counting the bikes...

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Later, I started counting people. There are 16 people in the picture. Some Adrian must have been visiting the loo at the time as I know it was seventeen of us! :D (A GoPro photo, not mine).

View attachment 145777
My brother Jacek had attended the ride, too. He likes simple beer. He had the "Kampinos Beer" brewed in another brewery in Błonie (not Artezan). I attest that Lager was just delicious (only tasted a sample as I was riding a "moped", haha).

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Tomek Dee was the co-author of the route (he did a test ride and planned the route on Saturday!) This time, he was late for the ride and tired. He had to pursue the group all the way to the restaurant!

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One of the full Club members Patryk (left) decided it was wrong the whole group should ride at the high speed of the Performance Group (7 people). He had established the Adventure Cycling Group of 10 people ad hoc :) We were happy to ride at slower speed. See the cobblestone: we had to ride a long forest cobblestone road segment. How jealous I was that my brother could ride his full suspension wide tyre e-MTB there! He of course showed off by riding that segment at the highest speed and yelling: "This e-bike was just made for this road!" :D

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3 km before my private finish line my left foot had had enough. I said good-byes to my mates and took a rest. Meanwhile, the temperature dropped to -3 C, the wind started howling, and it was snowing a little...

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My ride map & metrics.
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I do like your huge group shots, just gives a nice cosy feeling of friendship and camaraderie, which I dont do enough of these days.

Even though it seems they did their best to lose you 😂
 
Bit of sadness today, nothing personal, but the wife and I went on a four hour drive to find some new places to ride when it warms up.
Did find some lovely trails around the Chorley and Wigan area.
But we decided to get some lunch and found that three of our favourite pubs in the area has closed down, as in shuttered windows... concrete blocks jamming the car parks.
These were popular, vibrant places for walkers and cyclists.
So many are going under as fuel prices and customer belt tightening takes effect.
Its a worry they will never reopen.
 
Chargeride said:
Even though it seems they did their best to lose you 😂
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There are things on the Earth I will never understand! How come I -- having the average speed of 23.7 km/h (it was a very good speed in rough terrain for the Winter and one of the best in the group) -- was almost constantly pursuing the group, many times in Turbo?!

Let me people tell you one thing: Vado 6.0 is not the best ride for the type of gravel cycling I'm doing, especially in the cold season. It is very far from the "gravel bike" and I cannot ride it fast off-road. Yet it has a strong motor and whenever I can get on asphalt I can compete with very strong riders! :)

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Tomek (front): -- 'It was I, I who rode that route for you yesterday, and then you left me so I had to pursue you all the way from Warsaw to the restaurant?!'
Patryk (left): -- 'You shouldn't have been late today lol xD'
:D
P.S. See me in the Wellies :D

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On his pursuit, Tomek Dee took this photo at the Bicycle Stable.

It was interesting to me to learn there are LBS/workshops that specialize in certain types of bikes. We have gravel oriented, road oriented or MTB oriented sites. "Bicycle Stable" is all for MTB. People must have gone mad on last Sunday: there were so many MTB group rides like in the middle of the Summer! There were also competing gravel group rides in the region on the same day. Despite the cold and wind.
 
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My legs had recovered sufficiently from Thursdays epic ride so I set out in the morning sun on another local ride, it was a little windy but not too bad! The wind was straight from the west today and around 20-25mph so I picked Kirkmuirhill as my turning point, I started off heading south towards the Clyde Valley and as I descended into the valley at Garrion Bridge I came across a big line of cars which were stopped because of work on the bridge! No problem on the bike of course and I continued on and grabbed a couple of photos crossing the bridge!
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I climbed out of the valley with a big line of cars behind me, I'm sure they were cursing me after being held up at the bridge 🤣 Luckily for them its just a short sharp climb before turning right back into the valley heading towards Hamilton where I had a big climb up towards Glassford where I would join the quiet back roads for a bit with lots of ups and downs and twists and turns towards Strathaven, its such a fun road to ride!

This is the view from the top of the climb at Hamilton on the back road to Glassford!
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I reached Glassford and continued on towards Strathaven where it would be time turn to the east and enjoy a nice tailwind for a while on the road to Kirkmuirhill, another couple of photos just after leaving Strathaven!
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Just after these photos there is a lovely big descent down into the valley but an immediate big climb back out of the valley! I was almost at Kirkmuirhill now where I would join the road back to the Clyde Valley at the opposite end from where I was earlier! This is just before descending into Kirkmuirhill!
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I reached Kirkmuirhill and was looking forward to the big descent down past the church into the valley where I hit almost 39mph today, another couple of photos were grabbed just before the descent!
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Of course after the drop into the valley its time to climb once again, as you can see from the profile photo it was very much an up and down day which I just love! :D I went up through Auchenheath and then enjoyed the long descent back down to the Clyde Valley where I followed the road to Crossford and turned north over the bridge and up the huge climb to Carluke, I remember struggling up here many times before purchasing my lovely e bike! Level 3 assist got me up the climb with ease where I passed through the main road in Carluke and immediately turned off back to the quiet back roads through Morningside and Allanton with almost 50 miles covered!

Looking towards home it wasn't looking very promising with a big squall moving from Glasgow towards my home town, it was a matter of hoping I wouldn't get a soaking but thankfully with only 7 miles or so to go I made it home dry and very satisfied with another great ride! I put my bike on its stand to give it a thorough clean when the skies opened, a quick dash to my garage ensued and I waited for the squall to pass through! What a fantastic ride in lovely conditions for the time of year, this wraps up January with 367 miles covered from 6 rides! More than happy with that and my awesome bike passed 24,000 miles today with 2 months to go until it will be 5 years old!
 

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