all t'way round

At least once a year I haul myself up Winnats Pass just to say its been done and for the reward of the plunge down over Mam Nick to Barber Booth and the wonderful ride down the Vale of Edale. This year we did it as a Tuesday evening ride, it was a cracking late spring evening, sunny but with just enough breeze to keep cool on the climbs. 12 turned out for the ride and I think that’s the best turnout to an evening ride we have ever had outside of bike week.

Ill let the others blog the main ride in more details; I want to talk about someone I met up on the Moscar road.

I had a few errands to sort out so I agreed to meet the rest out at Bamford, and I rode my old commuting route to Carbolite on the A57 over Moscar. It’s a busy road, a pleasing number of motorists did pass at a suitable distance , but plenty came by too close and being a sunny evening the born again motor bikers and sports cars were all out for the mad thrash over to the Snake to Glossop and back .

Just heading up toward the old isolation hospital at Hollow Meadows I could see a mountain biker in the distance , then as Father Dougal McGuire never quite grasped, I realised it wasn’t a large cyclist in the distance at all, he or she was just a very small cyclist quite close . I caught up and found a young lad giving his all on a bike just a touch too large for him, not much older than our Patrick, Id say around 12 - 13 years sold.

I was a bit shocked and concerned at first seeing this little lad on his own surrounded by the speeding cars and motorbikes that seemed oblivious to him. I overtook him and asked if he had far to go. A broad Sheffield / North Derbyshire accent said proudly,

“Ive been all t'way round and me house is just o'er hill”

He pointed in the general direction of the few houses up at Moscar top. I said cheerio and carried on up the hill to Moscar Moors as I needed to make time up to meet the other’s (I didn’t I was 10 mins late ).

As I headed on up I realised how wrong it was to be shocked seeing this young lad on the road, he had just a much right as the rest of them and he was doing a sterling job. I wondered just how many miles “ all t’way round “ was for the lad from Moscar Top.

Drifting off in one of those flashback moments...

Down in the East Midlands in 1977 a 13 year old boy gets his first real road bike, a 10 speed Puch Freespirt with drops and a 23” frame that would be slightly too big for him even 30 years later. A wide ratio 34 tooth rear block was good for wheelies in the street but meant the bike could go up hills and haul camping gear. A summer spent working on a farm in Northamptonshire (75p an hour) resulted in a set of hand made alloy wheels from Renolds cycles in Northampton, pannier carriers and Karrimoor panniers. A few years later that same frame took me and my camping gear from Kettering to Barber Booth and on to Edale.

It took 3 days to get up to Edale via Drayton manor, Fenny Bentley, and Buxton mostly on minors roads. A couple of days in Edale included being chucked out of the Jolly Rambler for underage drinking and going straight on at the bottom of the hill into Barber Booth as neither of us knew there was a bend there and old Weinmann centre pulls couldn’t quite stop the bike . We went back via Whatstandwell and on to Kettering, a 95 mile day in the saddle on Chuck and Di’s royal wedding day.

gardening , no cycling

After a hairy experience almost hit by a car while negotiating the tram lines at Hillsborough Corner yesterday (when will we get the cameras on the tram gate) I decided on a quiet day pottering round the garden listening to England v West Indies.

This old Raleigh was given to me by a Professor at Sheffield University Law Dept and I had hoped to make it into a pub hack bike but it has ended up as a trellis for my clematis.

its been a funy old weeked

Its been a funny old weekend As Arkwright probably never said.

We did an absolute classic North Derbyshire / Yorkshire Route on Saturday in every kind of weather apart from snow. Flouch, Holmfirth, Holme Moss, Glossop , Snake Pass , Ladybower and Moscar moors. Only 60 miles but nearly 9000 feet of total ascent

Ill let Simon give you the run down at

http://smgcycleblog.blogspot.com/2007_05_13_archive.html#5889145524462867824

I have to admit I look half like I was doing OK in Simon's photo of me which Ive shamelessly lifted of his blog in fact I kept strruign to hang on but Im short of big miles this year.

My my legs still ache on Sunday night and the whole ride was 5 parts hell and 5 parts stunning scenery. Holme Moss is always brilliant and at least the sun stayed out up there. Ill be back up there again with less tired legs on a less wet day soon. Top marks to the friendly little Corner House café in Holmfirth.

This was the same climb 6 years ago, see I've hardy aged at all!

http://ianloasby.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/phil/

If Holme Moss was a joy in the sun the Snake Pass saw us cycling up through the clouds into a virtaul monsoon with absolutely no shelter to go and hide in. I was worried about aquaplaning straight off into the moors. Isnt odd how cadgers always drive faster and closer when its stair rodding down.

Today in equally grim weather Shef United got relegated dramatically on the l;ast day of the season judt like they did a few years back . Feel sorry for the Blades fans and the team put in a real effort to stay up but Ive never been a real fan of Warnock and his opinions and now in the press he seems to be blaming Man united for losing to West Ham. It was good to see Leicester old boy Emile Heskey play a blinder for Wigan. looks like Steel city derbys again next season although there could be some legal messing till this is all sorted.

Finally big thanks to the ignorant driver of the blue Citroen C3 speeding through the floods in Walkley last night. You certainly saved me the effort of having a Sunday bath, why not just have the bath while walking to the curry house.

If id been a child or old and frail that tidal wave you sent up over the path would probably have knocked me off my feet. Ill return the favour one day mate.

May Elections

Today (May 3^rd) sees council elections in Sheffield and we are told the result is on a knife edge. In the Walkley ward we have a sitting Labour councillor who is up for a re-election and the result here could swing the whole council.

I went off and voted Labour this morning, partly on party lines but also because our councillor has been an excellent hard working representative for our community over the last few years.

The only party material I have seen the year is from the Labour party. I would have liked to read what the Lib Dem candidate has in store for Walkley (after all 2 of our 3 councillors already are from that party) but Ive received nothing from them apart from the newssheet they delivered about 2 months ago telling me how awful everything is. I didn’t even know the Lib Dem candidate name till I saw it on the ballot paper

The Greens have been equally disappointing. Im interested in green politics and I know some of their councillors. Their stand on cycling and transport issues in the city seems sound and their councillors in central ward have always helped us out at the Sheffield Cycle Campaign (although we are independent of any political party). The Greens may never have enough support to take Sheffield council but it’s quite possible they will be the largest party outside Lib and Lab and maybe tomorrow they will have to support one of the other parties in a hung council. Did they deliver anything, maybe printed on recycled paper, or come to they come knocking at my door to seek my vote, sadly no, not a peep from them.

Finally the Conservatives, who lets face it are on hiding to nothing in most, but not all, parts of Sheffield (It seems folk in the former Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire have long memories ), but I would have least liked to have read what plans and ideas they have for Walkley . It not that long ago that the Conservative candidate would at least get out and put the hard work in even though they knew they were always going to lose, and Id respect them for that (remeber that episode of Rab c Nesbit?). I cant ever see me supporting that party but I feel slightly let down by them that they didn’t even put the effort in off delivering some material about their candidate (sorry name slips me now)

So I cycled down to the polling station and cast my vote for Veronica Hardstaff, hoping that she gets back in for the excellent work she has done for us, but with a slight feeling of having being let down by the whole process and having little or no choice in the matter as none of the other parties seem to want my vote.