Riding from Barking to Tower Gateway using CS3

Yesterday myself and Sarah finally decided to go to Tower Gateway by using one of the Barclays Cycle Superhighways, which was the CS3 route starting at Barking and ending at Tower Gateway. Before deciding to go to Tower Gateway Sarah was still very unsure, and at the moment she is on a diet and wants to lose some weight, I advised her that doing this trip would be very beneficial to her goal of losing weight and I also told her she would be fine with me on those mean streets of London, well I am happy to say we did end up going there and coming back in one piece.

Before setting off earlier that morning I had eaten a bowl of porridge with some dried apricots, raisins and golden syrup which had filled me up for a while, Sarah that morning had a bowl of Strawberry oat cereal with a healthy Strawberry probiotic yoghurt mixed in with the oats. Those were our breakfasts that would set up us for the rest of the day, but before we left the house we also had a smoothie each which consisted of all the ingredients found in Smoothie of the day 1 plus one extra orange, and I had 2 tablespoons of Greek yoghurt in my smoothie which had made the smoothie much more creamy, if that is how you like smoothies I recommend you try it. Finally just before leaving we also packed some supplies for on the road which I carried in a backpack, supplies included an apple for each of us, 3 slices of plain Burgen soya and linseed bread, two handfuls of raisins in a sandwich bag, and a handful of apricots too.

It was now time to leave which is what we did and had to ride from near where Dagenham Heathway is to the start point of CS3 at Barking, at which point me and sarah took this photo together and here is another photo we took of the CS3 information point which indicted we would arrive at Tower Gateway in 55 minutes. That was not to happen as we some made some short stops on the route for Sarahs energy levels to get back up, and mine too, so our first stop was Canning Town Recreation Ground which is where we were to sit down for 10 minutes to rest and to eat our apples for an extra energy boost.

It was now not too long before we set off again, once we had rejoined CS3 we were faced with a nightmare, a school kids day out it seemed was taking place as it looked like half of a school had taken to the streets of Canning Town, on the pavement and on CS3 too, well after about a minutes worth of snail pace riding and manoeuvring we had finally passed the kids and the teachers and now we could finally pick up speed again but again it was not too long, about 5 minutes, before we had to slow down again, as there were road works and maintenance taking place around about here which was where we were meant to dismount  for a distance of about 100 yards, but that was not to happen, instead we took it easy around the obstacle course that was the maintenance works.

It was an easy route from now on until we got to Tower Gateway which was to be our finishing point, but while we were there, we decided we were not going to head straight back home so we went across the road to the Tower of London, but we only sat down on the steps far away from the tower, but that did not mean we did not get a good view, because we did, so we had a nice view looking at the Tower of London while sitting down on the steps eating our food supplies that we had packed earlier, we also had some tiny friends visit us who we shared some food with

Once we had finished sitting down on the steps for 25 minutes we got back up and headed towards CS3 to make our way home. We found coming back home a much easier journey than going there. I am guessing it was the 25 minute break and buffet of healthy food that helped us get home much quicker, it was just a shame about the maintenance works and dummies standing in the middle of the cycle lane

But eventually we had made it back home in one piece, we were very tired as this was Sarahs first time riding so far, and I had only done CS3 once before which was late last year, but surprisingly once we were back home it seemed that I was slightly more tired than Sarah was, I guess it was a battle of ages, Sarah being 21 and myself being the old dude at 26

Many photos from yesterday can be seen here and below, I hope you enjoyed reading about another one of our journeys

Day for a wet ride

Yesterday was a day of many discussions and thoughts, Sarah recently has started to want to lose weight, and yesterday I wanted to go out when it was lightly raining, which it was for a short while. There were many places we were deciding between including Hainault forest and riding the CS3 London cycle route from Barking to Tower Gateway, In the end though we decided to go to somewhere different, which was to RSPB Rainham Nature Reserve

As this ride was going to be quite far considering distance and weather, Sarah packed some food including a healthy Cranberry cereal type bar and a pack of 3 biscuit that look like Garibaldi biscuits but are quite healthy, I did not pack any food for the journey which was quite bad of me but before I left I had a massive handful of spinach that I stuffed in my mouth and a handful of raisins that I shoveled down, so we were both running on minimal food supplies apart from my breakfast that morning which was porridge with honey, raisins and a sprinkle of cinnamon, Sarah had not had any breakfast that morning

So to begin we departed from our house to go a near 7 miles to where we was going to which is basically includes just a long stretch of road, so not many turnings were required, as we got closer to the nature reserve we also got closer to Thurrock so our route started to become more industrial, so there were more trucks on the road and loads more traffic from the nearby A13 and more narrow roads which Sarah was not a fan of at all, especially those huge trucks, but what got to us the most was that rain that slowed us down and soaked us at the same time but I read in an article once, if you workout in the winter months you workout more, so you burn more calories and so on, so I had a good mindset going out.

Once at the nature reserve we were only there for about 5 minutes and it was more of a rest for us as Sarah found it very boring and for me I enjoyed the peace and quiet, it was just a shame about the rain, so after 5 minutes of standing around inside the nature reserve we set back off home on the same route we had only just took to get to the nature reserve

Our ride back home was quite easy and compared equally to our ride there, well almost. Once out of the nature reserve we took the same route and headed for home, for most of the journey we were coping quite well, but as we gradually got nearer to home we also gradually started to get worn out and now the endurance factor was kicking in I guess and we both slowly got worn out but we only got severely worn out in the last 10 minutes of riding, once home we breathed a sigh of relief and we were both weak once at home

After being at home for a short while I prepared us both a smoothie with our Cookworks juicer and hand blender. We both had the same smoothie which included one apple each, one pear each, half a mango each and one orange each. Shortly after the smoothie I was still hungry so I snacked on some cheese and chive ALDI oat nibbles, and now it would not be long before I started dinner which was to be a light spaghetti bolognese using turkey mince and wholewheat organic spaghetti, Before our meal though we had forgot the bolognese sauce so we walked to our local shops down the road and bought some light bolognese sauce, after that it was back home to enjoy our dinner

This morning I feel great, I expected to still feel tired but I did accidentally fall asleep very early last night which was a pain, but great in terms of my recovery because today I feel good

Thank you for reading, as always please comment

A Trip to the unknown

Yesterday I finally got back on my bike for a proper bike ride, I have had many bike rides recently but these are the kind of rides I class as proper rides, rides that shatter bones as you shoot down hills, pedalling through slush and having full on concentration, that is what I love

The place I went to yesterday is not far from my mums house, that place being Havering Country Park and this time I managed to drag along Sarah with me on a bike ride. So let's begin the story, the day started with both of us drinking a smoothie and me eating half of a malt loaf, Sarah had an apple, pear and mango smoothie and I had an apple, pear, mango, kiwi and spinach smoothie, both of which boosted our energy levels, now it was time to set off towards Romford or Collier Row to be exact? after what must have been about a 35 or 40 minute ride we arrived at my mums which is where Sarah would take her pit stop while I had a banana and set off again towards the park which took me about 10 minutes to reach the entrance of the park, once you first get in there and past the sign it seems boring, but not for long, once you ride through this fence the action packed fun ride begins, some hills were tricky to ride up, not because they were steep but because of the sloppy mud, so I was pedalling fast to get up the hill but was only going at a slow speed which was a challenge and I love myself some challenges

If you see the above right image that is me looking back, so that was the sloppy hill I had to ride up, not steep at all, but was still a challenge because of the mud, while riding through the mud I had lovely sounds to ride to and I also stopped for a moment to breath in that lovely natural scent in the air and to even video record a 1 minute clip of the lovely sounds of nature that I enjoyed listening to, which can be seen and heard below

Once I had stopped recording I moved on and continued to ride around the park and encountered many of these annoying gates, anyone else hate these gates? Well anyway once past those gates I noticed smoke up ahead so went to look and it looked like workers were burning away old wood, I am not sure why as I would have thought parts of trees and whatever else they were burning should just remain in the woods on the ground, but no they were burning it all away and creating a nasty pollution of smoke and I even went to have a closer look at the enemy

Now it was time to move on again, as I was not going to stand there and watch them have fun with fire all day, further into the woods and I came to a part of the woods that seemed to contain more life and green things such as these mushrooms that I decided to eat, of course I am joking, I also loved the view of this long path, look at the size of those trees and I even thought I would get a close up of a tree which you can see below

I had also decided to take myself to the bench for a short while and to pose for the camera which is when I noticed another tree opposite me that was something interesting to see, I wonder who lives in here at night?

After so long of sitting down I decided to move along on so I headed up that path with all the trees which was slightly uphill and after a short while I slowly rode past 2 horse riders and eventually reached the end of the woods it seemed, at which point I turned back and headed along the same kind of path but over to the right some more which is where I got this lovely view and not so lovely fence, slightly further down I stopped to take some photos of this horse and crow and this cool looking tree that had a sign on it saying 'private keep out'. Yet again I moved along and came to this sign which I found confusing because although it points in that direction and says parking, once through the gate there is only some grass and a path which I took a ride around

After a quick ride around that strange part of the country park I decided it was time to head back as I had covered most of the country park, well about 80% of it because there were some turns and paths I did not go down, but now I was heading back, and all of those hills I rode up was finally going to pay off as I would go as fast as I have ever been on the bike it seemed, I could even feel the g-force on the back of my neck while shooting down the very long hill although from that photo it does not look very downhill or long at all, I could have even gone much faster down that hill but as it was muddy and it was my first time over there I was not going to not use the brakes at all, but when I next ride over there I will be sure to go faster down the hill as yesterday it was a very nice experience with that wind blasting me in the face and that evil g-force pulling on my neck

Thank you for reading, I know it has been a while since my last bike journey type of post, I am sure they will be more often as the weather is getting warmer now and the forests and country parks are starting to dry up so I hope to see you back here soon

A snowy and frosty day to ride

It was the 18th of December and the snow was falling heavily outside, and there was me, indoors resting my injured heel

So the risk taker I am I decided I would soon be going out in that blizzard and I did, with my heel the way it was and having not eaten much apart from oat cereal earlier that morning, naughty me, it was the afternoon by the time I left the house

I seemed to have prepared myself for the worst, but throughout the entire ride I remained warm which is good, with all them layers of clothing I had on, no surprise, you can see a creepy looking photo of how I looked before I went out here, I look like some kind of ninja that is ready to kill

So after leaving, the ride to the country park was quite easy because the snow was thick, so it was not thin and icy, which would have been much worse, as I went to Beam Valley Country Park again I basically took the exact same route there that I did when I went on 7th December, past the church and so on, the reason I went to that park again is because it is one of the decent country parks around here and it is massive and links to many other country parks too

It was worth going again for the fact that the snow was much thicker so I could get much more beautiful photographs than last time, like this tree as I entered the country park, the metal sign was covered in snow this time

As I progressed I took many more photos along the way, stopping and getting back on the bike took longer than usual because of foot, but I loved taking photos, like these ones

 

All the photos that I display like them 2 above can be viewed on the Picasa web album or on Panoramio, so carrying on, I proceeded to the bridge that crosses over the train tracks, these were the beginning of the steps that awaited me, they were not as slippery as I thought, being up there was the easiest park, and of course I had to come down a set of stairs, which was easy again, but not as easy as going up a set of stairs covered in snow

As I exited the bridge I had an option of going right which would have lead me down a long path, alley type way which would have brought me out onto another part of the park, but over on that part of the park was a pond, this one seen right in the middle, on Google Maps, and as everything was covered in ice and snow, even lakes, I thought it may have been best not to go that way incase I misjudged where the pond was, so I thought it was better to be safe than sorry and head straight on as I exited the bridge where I passed a bush that was in my way and once I got past that I turned left where some of my favourite photos were taken, as seen below

 

So as I rode down that long pretty path after a while I turned right to go down another long path and I ended up in one of the connected country parks, The Chase where I decided I would ride around some lakes, which I knew my way around, so I was pretty sure I was not falling through any snow into water, below are 2 lakes I took photos of, you would never guess they were lakes I guess, I also decided to get a snowball and throw it in the lake to break the snow and ice to see how thick the blanket of snow and ice was, and I did manage to create a hole with my snowball, and it did look quite thick, between about no less than 5 cm and no more than 8 cm at a rough guess, the thought did enter my head, would I fall through if I went on there, I imagine I would have fell through, but I was not mad enough to try so I moved on

 

Here is a photo from higher up of the lake in the photo on the right, nobody was fishing here today, Now I was heading towards the gate out of The Chase and would proceed into the next country park, but only quickly just to take a photo of a cool tree log bench and to take a photo of the fishing lake accross the other side of the road as seen in the photo on the right hand side below, I think you will need to look at that one in Picasa though to see it properly

 

So now it was time to leave, which I did, and I took a different route home, using the roads more, but I decided I am safer on the pavement, well down one road I was as I was slipping all over the place and thought in a minute I may fall off and be splattered by the traffic after, after that not much else happened, apart from about 5 minutes before I got home, something strange happened, the chain started to slip loads, on most gears I could use, strange that it only decided to happen just before I got home, which is good though, being at the country park and having to ride all the way home with a slipping chain would have been a nightmare

Looks like I am going to have to degrease and oil my chain now, which I would much rather do when the snow has cleared outside, so I think that is what I will do

That is all for now, hope you enjoyed reading and did not get too bored, thank you for reading and remember you can view all of the photos on Picasa or Panoramio

What a ice day to go out on the bike

Well yesterday was certainly an action packed day once I left my place with my bike and my camera, I did not have much food in the fridge or cupboards so my only fuel was a bottle of water, but earlier in the morning i had oat cereal and the night before had a nice spaghetti bolognese so I guess they were my fuel for the ride

So as I walked out the door, I enabled CardioTrainer on my Android phone to record my workout as it calls it, I was all set too, I had all my layers of clothing on including a jumper and a jacket, 2 scarf's, a pair of thin gloves and another pair of thick gloves over the top of them, 2 pairs of sock's, you get the idea, I also had jeans on, and the reason I am mentioning that is because i would like to share what I use as trouser clips as I not sure if many people have thought of using what I use? Many people may have but just may not be cheap like me, well what I use is string off a ball of string like this here and the rest is obvious after that, I double knot it around the bottom of my trousers, and when I want to take it off, I just use some force and pull the string and it snaps, so it is too inconvenient using string

On with the ride, as I rode through the town to reach Beam Valley Country Park it was quite clear, there were patches of ice here and there, but not so much, once I had entered Beam Valley I was in for a shock, the entire wide path once inside was thick full of ice, there was so much that I decided, this is going to be called not ice skating, but ice biking so as I rode slowly down the path it was very bumpy and slippery, but I did not fall off or land on my feet once which was quite good seeing as I had my camera in my jacket pocket and if I fell off the bike, may not have had a camera anymore

after not so long of riding down the path I pulled in to some grass as it was time for the bike to do some posing, see photos from 2 to 6 here and that place is the same place I also took some photos the other day when I went out, when the snow was extremely thick, that album can be seen here

So After I took those photos I moved on, and about 1 minute later I stopped again, this time I stopped here and beneath me and in front of me was a frozen stream of what should normally be flowing water I think, you will get the idea if you look here from photo 7 to photo 11

So once again I get moving and do not stop for about the next 5 minutes or so and I stopped here because I simply loved this view and thought it made a beautiful photo, what do you think?

And I continued riding, stopping, riding, stopping for many more photos that you can see, like this photo of an interestingly shaped tree that I took about 5 minutes after that last photo with the nice view, I guess this crow wondered how many pictures is this dude goiung to take today, Although minitaure this slope could be fun riding down, but that would be another day

After those photos I turned out on to another path that would lead me here to these steps where I would walk across the train tracks, well above actually, so yes I was totally safe on the bridge that I was on

Now it was time to walk down the steps and exit the bridge and come out on the other side of the country park which would lead me eventually to here, which technically is now The Chase, as I entered the chase there were these icy steps that I decided not to go down, so instead went left instead of forward which brought me this view of this sneaky fox and as I went down, the fox obviously run off but I stopped to look to my right and noticed these massive patches of ice mixed with snow and I moved on and thought these photos would make for some nice photography, photos 33 to 36

Now was to head out as it was starting to get dark and I was getting tired and also my hands were freezing off, so after 5 minutes of riding from the place I took the last photos from I came to this gate and pushed and pushed myself accross the rough snow, it was so rough, I was on low gears and my back wheel was spinning up occasionally, as I got to the end of that I turned right to head down this long path where I had to  battle through patches of ice, some I rode over, which was quite fun, I only rode over the tiny patches though, but still, when riding through them it was like riding to escape death, but of course not literally as i am sure you know, riding down this path was also another tough challenge through rough snow, it felt like I was doing a game of gladiators or trying out for the army, I was pushing as much as my body let me and was having loads of fun

Once I reached the end of that long path I exit through the gates and came on to a path that would lead me out these gates

Finally I was out of the country park, but I decided after that to quickly cross over to another part of the country park, this time to the fishing lake that I thought had a real beautiful view as the sun was low and reflected on the water in the lake

After that It was time I headed home at last, so I did but thought I should take one last photo of this fun and great journey, so ended with this photo and after that, headed home through the town at quite an average speed

Now I was finally home, time to stop CardioTrainer, sit down, rest, and eat

Hope you have enjoyed reading this post, hope it did not drag on for too long, but I thought I would write about my entire journey, rather than split it up in multiple parts

Thank you for reading

The White Ride of My Life

Yesterday was defiantly a memorable day and will be for many more years to come

Before yesterday I had never been out in thick snow on a bicycle before, but I have been out on a bike when there has been ice, if I remember correctly that was many years ago on a Christmas morning

So going back to yesterday, before I went out I was asking on Twitter, no replies there, so I asked on Facebook, some people advised me against it and I could understand why, I had no helmet and still have no helmet, because I can not afford to buy one at the moment

So before I left I was nervous, but after riding through the town and to a local country park I was happy to finally reach the park in one piece, the snow was extremely thick in the park, not surprisingly, at times I did try pedalling hard, I did not fall off, my feet did fall off the pedals though and I landed on my feet about five times throughout the day, but if you did see how thick the snow was, the same may have happened with you too unless you are a balancing expert

But what made it the ride of my life was that I had to concentrate like never before and had to think strategically all while still smiling and having fun especially once in the park

I was in the park for just under one hour, the other hour was spent riding to the park and riding home, including stopping to use my phone and my camera

So all in all, I had a fun day and I hope that ride taught me stuff, anything, could be that my handling of my bike from now on will improve by about 2% or possibly my endurance may have increased by about 5% after all that tough riding through the snow and snow blasting me in the face, it was like punishment if you looked at it another way, but I look at in a way and I just remember having fun

I will be doing this again, if not this month while the snow is still here, the next time the snow comes to visit us once again

All photos taken from yesterday can be seen here on my Picasa Web Albums, I hope you will take a look at all of the photos and if you want you to use the photos just ask me, but if you want to save them to a computer, just do that, no need to ask me

Thank you for reading this blog post, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it