What is this? Crufts? (+ a puzzle)

General
1

There is one deliberate “general knowledge” style factual untruth below. Usual rules: if you want to play, PM me with the answer. If you don’t, then please don’t spoil it for those who do by referring to it in your replies. Thanks

Droughts and hose pipe bans in the news, and pouring rain and howling gales outside - what a year it’s been so far. Last night, realising that today’s weather would be… er… unreliable… I decided to make today’s project an assault on My Own Personal Everest (MOPE).

I have described MOPE in previous write ups, but for those who can’t or don’t remember: MOPE is Middleton Incline on the High Peak Trail. The High Peak Trail is an old railway track bed. It starts at the bottom of the valley near to the Cromford Canal, and climbs up a huge incline to Black Rocks - an outcrop of gritstone much favoured by climbers. There is then a short section of fairly level trackbed, followed by the Middleton Incline which leads up to Middleton Top.

Middleton Incline is something like half a mile (0.8 km) long, and approximately 1:7 (14%) gradient. Like some other inclines on this line, it is so steep that the trains had to be winched up by a static steam engine in a building at the top. The big pulley wheel for the continuous cable is still visible in a pit at the bottom of the incline.

The surface is varied, with some compacted mud, some compacted grit, and some loose stones and ballast. Every 10 - 15 metres or so, there is a diagonal kerb to redirect rainwater run off, and to prevent erosion. Each of these is an obstacle to be overcome - on the way down, I can ride over them, but on the way up, I have to go round one end or the other, which means choosing the best route between mud or loose stuff, and contending with slight but significant changes in gradient.

A third of the way up is a bridge, under which the trackbed is particularly uneven, with big bits of rock breaking through,

On previous rides, the best I have ever managed is to reach the top in four stages, with only 3 UPDs. That was on my Nimbus 24 with 150 mm cranks. The furthest I’ve managed before the first UPD is just short of the first bridge.

So, today’s primary objective is to make it through the bridge before the first UPD, and the “ideal” is to make it to the top in one. How good is this new KH24, and is my increase in skill outpacing my decline in fitness?

So I leave home in light drizzle, and by the time I’m a mile down the road, it is raining stair rods. I’m tempted to turn back, but what the hell? I carry on. Nearly an hour later, I am in the car park at Black Rocks - my car one of only two present, and the other one is just leaving! It is raining persistently (absolutely persisting down, in fact) and I wonder what on Earth I’m doing.

Two experiments today. First, I am using my old waist-pack with space for two water bottles, instead of the Camelbak. I rode many miles with this before buying the Camelbak. I don’t really like the way that the Camelbak bladder makes my back sweat, and the water isn’t so refreshing though a tube. On the other hand, the waist-pack doesn’t spread the weight so evenly, or sit so steadily on bumpy tracks. Second: this is the first time out with my new ridiculously expensive Garmin Foretrex 201 wrist-mounted GPS.

So I stand in the rain in the car park, disconsolately waiting for this new toy to find some satellites. Then I’m up an on, and riding along the trackbed.

Did I mention it had been raining? The trackbed is slightly “dished” because of the amount of pedestrian and bike traffic it takes, and it has flooded to a depth of 4" - 6" in places (10 - 15 cm) and there are puddles as long as swimming pools. Unable to avoid them, I slow right down so that I don’t get a rooster-tail of spray up my backside. A UPD here would mean wet shoes and socks too, so I take it very steady. There is some slithering, but I stay on. There’s about half a mile of this, and I soon get used to it, and almost wish I had an audience, because it probably looks more hardcore than it is to do.

Then I see mountain bikers blocking my path. Mountain bikers seem to spend a lot of their time not actually riding. As I approach, they pull to one side, and make encouraging comments.

Then I am at the bottom of MOPE, My Own Personal Everest, the Killer Slope of Doom. I slow down, and try to pace myself. I am doing surprisingly well. In fact, it seems much easier than ever before. Even the kerbs are lower than I remember them, and…

It’s only been resurfaced!

This sustained challenge to my technical ability, my concentration and my physical stamina has been reduced to a long smooth slog - half a mile or so of 14% gradient, with no hazards or obstacles other than the sheer distance and steepness.

Don’t you hate it when they improve things?

Soon, I am almost at the bridge, and I’m still riding in the seated position. Usually by now I’d be standing on the pedals, and picking my route with exhausted care. The red brick arch of the bridge towers above me - although it is one of the best-preserved late Tudor (1593) railway bridges in Britain, it is taller than expected because the arch is in the much earlier steeply-pointed Norman style.

Under the bridge with no problems, and then more of the same, really. This is just a long steep slog, and the only obstacle between me and the top of the incline is my own level of fitness. I am breathing hard, trying to keep the pace down without losing momentum, and my mind is wandering into that dark area where it wonders what the point is. The little demon on my shoulder whispers to me to give up, because with this smooth surface, it is no longer a proper Personal Everest anyway. The demon on the other shoulder snarls that if I don’t do it this time, It’ll only make you come back until you do.

Then something interesting and unexpected happens. About 8 - 10 ramblers appear from a gate on my left, shortly before I reach a bridge that passes high over a road. They have about 1.5 dogs each, some on leads, some not. The ramblers turn up the hill in front of me and in the traditional manner of ramblers everywhere, spread out, slow down, and ignore the cyclist approaching them. I say ignore because at least one of them made direct eye contact with me after coming through the gate.

I hate this situation: I am going ever so slightly faster than them. I can’t easily slow down, but it could take me a long time to catch and overtake them. There is an etiquette problem here: when does a single unicyclist ask 8 or more dog walkers to step aside? Can the dogs be trusted? Some are loose and may jump up or snap; others are on leads, and in some ways that is worse because a particularly cunning dog can leap across in front of you, stretching the lead across your path.

In my habitual manner, I grunt a bit louder, cough a couple of times (how English is that?) and a couple of the ramblers turn, express surprise with raised eyebrows, and step aside, calling their dogs to them. They shout ahead to the other ramblers, and soon the whole path ahead of me is a maelstrom of dog walkers and dogs, attempting to control or ignore each other respectively, and all I can focus on is finding a way between them.

I make it through with just one dog jumping up at my leg as I pass it. It is on a lead, and I make momentary eye-contact with the owner and sub vocalise through gritted teeth words to the effect of “Bloody stupid animal.”

I am now very close indeed to six things:
The top of the incline,
Two more dog walkers,
Two more dogs,
Complete physical collapse.

The gate at the top of the incline is the length of a swimming pool away, and at about eye level. I am nearly there. The two dogs are unrestrained, and too lively to be predictable. The dog walkers are in their own little world, having paid no heed to the kerfuffle that has just happened behind them. The ground here is just a little bit less smooth than the lower part of the slope. I am at the end of my energy reserves. Plotting a route past dogs and dog owners, or timing my ride to avoid the need to overtake them distracts me just that bit too much, and, BANG! I UPD within sight of the finish line.

A word that rhymes with duck escapes my lips. (That’s it, boys and girls, I said, “What bad luck!”) The dog walkers turn in surprise.

2

What to do now? I am annoyed, irritated, exhausted and embarrassed. Carry on to the top? Hardly worth it. Ride back down and try again? It’d probably kill me. Ride back down to show these people that I had ridden this far before their stupid dogs had got in my way? In my calorie-depleted chest-heaving teeth-grinding state, this last one seems the only rational course of action.

So I remount and set off down the slope on legs of jelly. And I meet the main party of dog walkers, and the same bloody dog jumps up, and I make momentary eye-contact with the lady holding the lead, and I am, shall we say, ungracious in my analysis of her dog’s charms and merits as a perambulatory companion. I’m not proud of it now, but at the time I was tired, dripping wet, and it was pouring with rain; now I’m at home typing this up as the early evening sun brings the red roofs of Carlton Valley to glorious life.

With mixed embarrassment and residual annoyance, I plod down the slope, my legs rebelling. I make it to the bridge over the road and stop for a rest. Having carried the weight of all that water up the hill, I now decide to drink some of it. The rain is much lighter now, and I take off my waterproof top and roll down my new impulse-buy Lycra arm warmers. Sweat rises as vapour from every part of me giving me, I fancy, a Mephistophelean air.

Back on the uni, and down through the Tudor bridge, and to the very short level section where another path joins. There is a sign here that says, “Danger, do not cycle down the incline.” As always, the pedant in me notes that one cycles down a decline, and up an incline.

To the bottom, where I meet another dog walker with a barely restrained dog. I see an opportunity to avoid it and swoop up a narrow mud path onto a raised area to my left. This path turns sharply left, parallel to the route I’ve just taken. To my right is a disused quarry. I follow the path round the lip of the quarry, sometimes only inches from the edge. Having done half a lap of this little quarry, I see to my left the area where I fell and gashed my chin a couple of years ago. With the ground so wet and muddy, and my legs still protesting, I decide not to go and try that particular little obstacle again. That demon can be laid to rest another day.

Then more skyline along the edge of this little quarry, and appreciative “Oooohs” from a lady walking her dog a few feet below on the quarry floor, and a quick swoop down a slope and up a slope and I’m back onto the track bed. Then it’s a few hundred metres of floods and puddles (fluddles?) until I’m back at the car park. Here is a decision point: to carry on, or to give up? I decide to carry on.

As I’m about to turn right and up a short slope away from the track bed, I see four council workers/rangers, one of whom enquires solicitously as to the whereabouts of my front wheel. I chuckle through gritted teeth. (I was going to become a misanthrope, but I didn’t like the lecturer or the other students on the Misanthropy 101 course.)

To my right is the dark bulk of the Black Rocks outcrop. Riding down from it is possible; riding up to it is not, so I follow a path that is parallel to the track bed, but more interesting, until I meet two young women walking their dogs. What is this? National Dog Day? One of the dogs looks terrified, and the owner is embarrassed and apologetic. I dismount and try to reassure the dog. He won’t come near me.

“What is it? Doesn’t he like men in hats?” I ask with dry irony.
“No, it’s bikes he doesn’t like,” she explains with pleasant imbecility.

Back on the uni, and up a slimy muddy slope under dripping wet trees. More dog walkers ahead: two people with about a dozen dogs! The people step aside, and the dogs are away frolicking in the woods, so I pass safely, crest the hill, then swoop down one of the trickiest bits of path I know. The ground is mainly slimy wet mud, but there are big lumps of gritstone - some loose, some solid - poking up ready to trip the wheel or provoke a pedal strike.

Although the ground is wetter and muddier than I have ever known it along this section, I make it further than ever before - then two dogs come along the path in the opposite direction, like quadrupedal torpedoes. That’s enough for me, and I UPD as they zoom past within nano-inches of the wheel.

I walk for a bit, then turn and walk up a really steep horrible slope. At the top, I pause for breath. This is a nice place to be, with small young oaks, a few birches, beeches and rowans. The sound of bird song is almost deafening - I can even hear it over my panting - and my pants are very large and noticeable, I can tell you.

I look up and see a bird that might be a cuckoo. I’m not sure, because I’ve never seen one before. When I get home I check the book, and I’m no wiser.

The two dog walkers and their many dogs arrive. The man comments that riding a unicycle up a steep hill in deep mud and loose rocks looks difficult. Not much gets past him. In a narrow corridor - when he’s carrying a very big box.

I let him and his canine tribe go on ahead, then I ride a bit, walk a bit, trying to regroup those tired leg muscles. I smell cut pine - a smell I remember well from my childhood visits to Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. A hundred metres later, I come to a new and rather ugly clearing where hundreds of pine tress have been felled.

This is a suitable point to turn back and practise those downhill skills… so I mount, ride, and UPD within a metre. Then again, and pedal strike on a rock, and fly gracefully from the saddle. Third time lucky, and I enjoy the descent, picking my route between mud and rock, doing a few small drops (inches, not feet). Soon, there are lots of these small drops in sequence, and the combined effect is both very tiring, and sometimes painful. My fertile imagination comes up with “Little droplets slaughter, little cries of pain…”

Well, I should be concentrating more on the riding and less on the contrived puns, because I am suddenly and unexpectedly confronted with the two young women with the terrified dog. I step off/UPD. There is a Mexican stand-off. I am waiting for them to pass me; they are waiting for me to pass them. I put the uni down, remove my hat, and make encouraging noises to the dog. The party passes, with a polite exchange of courtesies, and with the dog keeping as far from the uni as it can manage.

Back on the uni and down the slope, until I hit the deepest slimiest mud patch, right on a hairpin pend, and with random rocks in it. Four attempts and I can’t ride through it. The fourth time, I dismount ballistically, and run a short distance down the slope. I put my hand out to stop myself against a small sapling, shaking a tree-load of water from its leaves, all over me.

I decide to walk for a while. Then I remount, and there’s more controlled descent - the hardest bit being to avoid the pedal strike that could pitch me over the low wall to my right, and down the slope.

At last, back on the trackbed, and an easy ride back to the car.

And the two experiments?

Water tastes better out of a bottle, but the Camelbak is a far better way of carrying it.

The GPS? It shows
Max speed 10.2 mph (16.4 kph)
Trip distance “only” 3.04 miles (4.9 km)
Average speed 4.7 mph (7.6 kph)
Movement time 38:51 minutes.

Less than 5 km and I’m absolutely bushed and bedraggled. Time to repair to the Corner Café for the best veggie breakfast in Derbyshire.

There is one deliberate “general knowledge” style factual untruth in the above. Usual rules: if you want to play, PM me with the answer. If you don’t, then please don’t spoil it for those who do by referring to it in your replies. Thanks

3

fab write up.

Cathy

4

Priceless

A treeload of water from Mike - to those thirsty souls amongst us.

5

Thanks.:slight_smile:

So far, only three responses to the “quiz”.:frowning:

Am I losing my touch, folks? :thinking:

6

I think this one could be a bit less obvious…i found several things shich i think may be a mistake but Im not sure if any of them are right or not…

7

Ah, the aging unicyclist conundrum.:slight_smile:

8

I’m not sure that’s true. I think “incline” just means “slope” - not necessarily upwards. Although “decline” can indeed mean a downward slope… hmmm…

Rob

9

I would be inclined to agree :roll_eyes:

10

Dictionary.com defines an incline as:
A deviation from horizontal or verticle. Slant

And decline is defined as:
A downward slope.

11

Mike what is your job in real life?

David

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<< The red brick arch of the bridge towers above me - although it is one of the best-preserved late Tudor (1593) railway bridges in Britain, it is taller than expected because the arch is in the much earlier steeply-pointed Norman style.>>

Plenty of good answers, and a few wrong ones. I had 13 entrants.

No one got all the points.

A 1593 railway bridge is impossible, given that railways as we know them weren’t invented until the 1800s. (I exlude mine trolleys, horse trams, and the like, because elsewhere the story makes it clear this is an old railway trackbed and the trains were winched up the incline by a standing steam engine.)

Wikipedia: <<The first steam locomotive to operate on rails was built by Richard Trevithick, and was tried out in 1804 at Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. >>

For more points: a Tudor building in the earlier Saxon style is pretty unlikely. The idea of “retro” architecture is very much later. Around Tudor times, the elite were starting to look back to the classical period.

And for pedants: the date given was in the period usually called Elizabethan, although to be fair, Elizabeth I was a Tudor, and Elizabethan architecture is usually referred to as Tudor.

Thanks to everyone who entered.

13

This is real life.

14

Entertaining and appreciated as ever. Finally managed to read it properly this morning, rather than my quick skim for the error a day or so ago. The quick skim revealed the basic error, whether I would have seen the sub points on a more thorough read is doubtful.

May I ask how long it took you to write that Mike? We mortals hardly deserve such effort.

Nao … who thinks that domesticated dogs could only be justified for a blind eskimo on guard duty.

15

I make it a rule that my write ups never take longer to do than the ride itself!:wink: The ride was only about 40 minutes - a bit longer with stops. I guess the write up was about half an hour. I spend all day writing technical stuff at work, so I’m used to it.

To be fair, I like dogs. I wouldn’t own one because it wouldn’t be fair on the dog. Many dog owners are very self-absorbed and selfish, though. But I suppose many cyclists are - including this one.

My girlfriend, Ruth, has two rottweilers that are great fun, and we wouldn’t be without them.