Well I was brave enough to venture out yesterday. Once past the rat-run, where traffic was all using a single track road to avoid road works on main Dorchester road, it was pretty nice. In General the state of tarmac was good, however, a couple of the smaller lanes had a narrow ribbon of tarmac between gravel in the centre and craters at the edge of teh road.
The state of driving was mainly OK, however, there were some exceptions: The Mercedes Convertible who passed me on a corner on a descent, I was travelling over 70kph and didnāt expect to be passed, especially as you couldnāt see round the corner. If a car had been oncoming would have been a collosal accident.
The Fire brigade Fiesta Van who overtook traffic heading directly towards meā¦ Oh right Iāll just disappear then. No lights flashing so not sure why he was in such a hurry.
The Range Rover, who passed me and caused an oncoming car to brake very hard. When he started the pass and noticed an oncoming car, rather than backing out, decided to keep his foot down and rely on other car avoiding a collision
English countryside is stunningly beautiful. It was a lovely evening, cycling on B roads and country lanes. Even though I rode 55km I saw one other cyclists. I would have expected to see many cyclists, but clearly the Daily Mail campaign is successfully detering cyclists, which is a terrible shame
Was down that way few years back for a pals wedding. Stayed at a campsite near cerne Abbas. He lives in piddletrinthide - there is a pretty decent network of B roads around that area, some short sharp steep climbs but overall pretty pleasant. I found a 10 mile run on and off road there which was pretty nice.
Maybe itās a regional thing, but Iām seeing more cyclists on the road than ever before, especially when the weather is nice.
A lot of the cyclists riding out of south west London do seem to stick to a limited number of roads though, so even on the ābusiestā days I have routes that I ride where I hardly see any other cyclists. Head to Box Hill or a more direct to Windsor though and youād see hundreds of them,
Thereās definitely more isnāt there - more up in Glasgow. More down in northantsā¦ On my old ten mile run about the house down here Iād rarely see anyone cycling years ago, but I see far more now. There are some good sustrans routes/ networks too and the womanās tour came through the way few years ago so Newnham hill has become a bit of a feature, short but steepā¦ used to do hill sessions on it with Daventry AC. However due to the up and downy nature of the landscape you still never see anyone out running here lol