Monday 26 January 2015

Trying New Things

A free Sunday and kind-of not-terrible weather for January led to semi ideal conditions to go and get muddy in Hertfordshire. I had a plan, which was to investigate various links between rides I’ve been doing regularly in the area that looked possible on maps but I’d never ventured down. Some were bridleways I’d missed, some were tracks that variously looked to connect or possibly not. Depending on the scale of the map I looked at. All were worth trying to satisfy my curiosity, if nothing else.

The added benefit was to be able to try out a new bit of kit I had. The Garmin Fenix is a fully functional GPS watch that allows you to both track your activity and navigate. I uploaded my route to the watch, stuck a back-up map in my bag and set out to learn how it would work with the support of vaguely knowing where I was going in the area I was riding.

Once I’d sussed the zoom on the map on the watch it started to come into its own – showing me where the route I’d chosen went, even if it lacked more detail to help to navigate. What went less well was the route, which turned out to be littered with deadends and private woodland that split my best laid plans.

As ever, here is the Strava data:


More interesting perhaps is this image which shows my plan (in green) and my ride (in blue)

While it didn’t go as planned I am happy with the ride which allowed me to look at those possible-seeming routes and rule them out mostly. Aside from the exploration it was a hard ride on semi-thawed mud which got harder to make progress on as it got softer, and hitting many of the usual tracks in the opposite direction to the one I usually follow. It’s very easy to get a particular path in your head as one-way without reminding yourself what it’s like the other way and giving a whole new perspective on it.

Elsewhere this weekend it’s been an excellent time for DIY bike business, whether you want to build your own carbon fibre bike around a 3D printed frame, or want to buy a North London bike shop for 99p and get involved in bikes (and in taking on the successful Cycle Surgery branch up the road).

A

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