Frequent Ride Feature

Members of the club comment that they do not know what I get up to in the winter in the 'windy' Midlands, so a new section for SWRC riders to contribute to a regular ride that they make every week, or at least a route they can tell us on the blog all about. A blatent 'rip-off' of a Cycling feature but as a designer all I can comment is that impression is the sincerest form of flattery

This is my ride to work loop, I try and do it 2 or 3 times a week mostly on a 68" fixed in the winter and it's almost 30 miles so it takes over 1 1/2 hrs but as I work for myself I can afford the time and It's only 5 miles home in the evening and I do not like riding in the dark any more than I have to

Leicester is in a bit of a natural bowl so its slightly uphill for 10 miles which ever way you leave town, I head out South against the prevailing SW wind which blows something cronic up here and the mainly agricultural landscape makes for an open and exposed ride most days (Leicestershire has the least tree cover of any county less than 1/2 of one percent compared with Surrey/Sussex 5-6 percent)


I pass the 1930's 'Pork Pie' circular library on Saffron Lane, just down the road is the now crumbling cycle track which used to be the National Cycling Centre now long since superceded by Manchester. It's sad to see it like that, scene of some of my best rides in younger days. On the way to South Wigston where the smell of Strawberry from the Jacobs biscuit factory pervades the air once or twice a month and you know it will be Jammy Dogers with afternoon tea in an effort to exorcise the smell that hangs in the nostrils.


Through Countersthorpe and Peatling Magna, Arnsby windmill in the distance (on a clear day) to Bruntingthorpe where the newly refurbished Vulcan Bomber is housed and made its maiden flight after a 6m refit last year
These roads are part of the Zenith 2 day Nigel Meason Road Race Gilmoreton Stage and the route from Walton to Lutterworth is the reverse of the 2.7m TT second stage so I 'have a go' if I'm going in the opposite direction to see how my form is.

Over the M1 into Lutterworth here is the birthplace of the jet engine, Coventry born Sir Frank Whittle set up Power Jets here when his idea for a Jet powered plane were dismissed during the 1930's, the first flight took place in 1941. A copy of this engine was sent to the USA thereby kick starting their own Turobjet industry (Doh!) His company was nationalised in 1944 and became Rolls Royce Aero upon which he was refused permission to develop further and resigned. There is a memorial in the middle of the roundabout just off junction 20

Another original thinker John Wycliffe also lived here in the mid 14th Century and translated the Bible into English for the first time thus giving birth to the education system. But got into a right load of bother with the Catholics who by all accounts felt that the text should be kept in an 'elite' Latin form and not for the common man.

Usually the wind is comming behind me by now and I can get ontop of my gear which has been a struggle to here but no pain no gain, there is a right old strange village naming policy round here, Ullersthorpe, Wibtoft, Wigston Parva and Frolesworth all seem to be made up names but here they realy exist.
Onto the Fosse Road for a bit and then Sapcote and Stoney Stanton where at Stoney Cove they have the deepest man made inland water (36m) and it's used for Scuba Diving. Apparently Chris Boardman a 'Scuber' afficianado has graced the water but he could only stay under the water for just under 46 minutes!


All the villages round here were quarrying communitys digging holes in the ground like Stoney Cove, the remaining site at Croft is one of the biggest granite quarrey in Europe now operated by Aggregate Industries we in the next village at Huncote get a 1 O'clock explosion every day which shakes all the tiles on the roof, like living in a poor mans Edinburgh. We work out of one of the many Chapels (our village has four) built to keep the workers on the 'straight and narrow', then it was turned into the village school (they want to be educated as well!) one local resident remembers that on Friday while the 'head' was moonlighting doing the books for a local firm they would pull the fattest kid in the class around on a pile of rags to polish the floor - education is a wonderful thing



17.0 mph average
18.0 mph good day
19.0 mph never been done