Been a while, need to catch up.

 Been a hectic few months, lots of work, shame non of it's paid. So it was last November we took the ride mentioned in the last post. So what have we been up to since? 

We rode along the Kenner and Avon Canal, between Bradford-on-Avon and Brassknocker Basin near Bath-

From video details ~ We start this ride from the Canal and River Trust carpark in Bradford-on-Avon, ( https://what3words.com/intensely.inefficient.hamsters ) following the Kennet and Avon Canal path across Avoncliff ( https://what3words.com/lurching.pirates.civil ) and Dundas ( https://what3words.com/allow.bridge.window ) Aqueducts.

Our next ride was one we can take from home, a nice change from having to load the trikes onto and into the car and then trying to find somewhere to park.

Birnbeck Pier to Brean Down along the Brean Down Way cycle route

Long form video. Sit back and enjoy the journey. We take a ride from by Birnbeck Pier at the Northern end of Weston-super-Mare Sea Front, along the Brean Down way Cycle Route, to Brean Down fort, at the end of Brean Down, a National Trust nature reserve. And back again.

My Daughter works for Bucher Municipal, she is based out of Avonmouth, this gives us a secure base to explore the Severn Beach and surrounding areas. We still intend to ride the Severn Wye bridges across to Chepstow on the bikes and trikes, a route we have done many times in internal combustion powered vehicles. This next ride was to explore the area, including visiting a "ghost" roundabout, built over the new link to the second Severn crossing and designed to service the new trading estates in the area, but due to problems with who was to fund the link, has spent years not yet commissioned. But it does have an impressive cycle path crossing it. Shame it's a path that ends on a busy country lane. 

But we just visited and then continued back to pick up another route crossing to Aust Services and Severn Beach.

Out on the ice Trikes ride to the Severn Wye and Ghost Bridges. Then back via Severn Beach,

As the Brean Down Way is a route we can take from home, due to parking limitations at home, it's a good one to use in the winter months. I say this as there is a section that is on road, this being the only access to Brean Down and is lined by caravan and camping sites. So the mile or so of often single track country lane is not a place I really want to share with tourists often towing caravans and away with the fairies. I hope one day to actually cycle to the top of the down without stopping to catch my breath and needing a push start. My Bafang 250W motor does an excellent job of assisting me up to a certain percentage of incline. If I was fitter and not suffering from COPD then I am sure that we could go steeper, after a google to see what the gradient was I found "\(3.66\text{ km}\) length. However, its initial slope kicks up to a maximum gradient of (35.5%) for a short section, making it one of the steeper paved climbs for cyclists in England." Which is reassuring. 

2 Rolls and a Down

But our second ride along the Brean Down way was not without incident. 

First, we try to avoid riding on sand due to the damage it can do to the drive train. So it was a surprise to me that Jayne went down the slip at Brean Down onto the beach. It was a surprise to her when instead of a little loss of traction in cornering the trikes that we have gotten used to was not there, instead the rear wheel dug in and flipped her on her side.

On the way back it was my turn, navigating a tight gap with a fallen post I was trying to avoid on the left, I caught a bolder with the right front wheel, that flipped me over. Fortunately a nice soft landing in some brambles.

Our penultimate ride of this catch up is a section of the Tarka Trail in North Devon. As the day also included a 160 mile round trip of driving, we set our ride out to a round trip of about 30 miles. Including a stop to catch up with an old friend of Jaynes in Bideford. 

We start and end the ride in Barnstable, my Daughters works van is a high top transit, she pays for private use which is great for carrying their bikes and gives us a mobile workshop base camp, but it's a pain to park. Barnstable Train Station has cycle paths linking to the Tarka Trail and is £6 for a days parking. 

I split the ride into two videos, I am still learning how to edit the huge files that the Insta360 cameras produce, especially the X5. One rides worth of footage is a few hundred gigs of data. The Tarka Trail was 328GB's just from the X5. The older One RS with it's 1 inch lens was another 194GB's 

I built a new computer for video editing as my 20 year old iMac with Final Cut was both dying and unable to manage the 4k Insta files. My new AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core Processor with 128gb's of RAM and water cooling. I hoped was up to the task of editing the footage, it is but it pushes the CPU to it's limits when rendering. 

I am still exploring how best to share. At the moment while I can upload the raw 360 footage to YouTube, there is no titles or music, I can only edit length. While 360 is lovely, someone can look at what they want, often this means something important can be missed from the POV. So we decided the 2 dimensional "flat" footage was the best way to share, noting the interesting point of views. These next two videos are exploring two different ways to share. The outward journey is highlights, while the return ride is the whole journey, but at double speed.

The last video of this update is our most recent ride along a familiar route. First time this year as the Tidenham Tunnel only reopened in April. 

Wye Valley Greenway 25th April 26 ~ A Roll and a Clip

This was an easy ride for us, it's a favourite route. Easy enough for us to take our friend Jan. Tidenham Tunnel is an experience all on it's own, and we get to do it twice per trip! Same with the Wire Works Bridge at Tintern, with the bonus that the tide was higher on this trip. Also this time there had been mentioned a wish to go to a shop at the Old Tintern Mill (note the pictures), where I found some really pretty Barn Owl earrings, just wished the water wheel was still in operation. Next we rode around to Tintern Abbey, after a quick bacon and egg butty for those able, and some shared chips for those not, we retired for a rest by the Wye. Where I played with my new really long monopod. All sounds good? Well I missed out the bit where I rolled me trike taking a detour. We often stop for a break off the main "track" in what I think used to be sidings, but there is a sharp off camber corner to negotiate, and in hindsight I tried to take it faster than I maybe should. But you don't find the limit till you pass it! It was not the only mishap, Jayne misjudged a gap on the journey back, the same gap we have sailed through at least 7 times before, they say familiarity breeds contempt. What took the shock was a kingpin. As Jaynes is a 2014 trike, the manufacturers, ICE, based in Cornwall, said the new ones were different so should replace both sides. Well they were identical, and we are £250 poorer. That was an expensive misjudgement.

In other news Jayne and I are going to get married. This involves a trip to Scotland where we intend to hopefully ride some routes on the trikes and visit some far off locations, like Aldhani, Naimos (both of Andor fame), with maybe a visit to Takodana, home of Maz Kanata's Cantina. Not that we are Star Wars nurds, what gave you that idea? 

Hopefully I will share more as the adventure unfolds.

This is the way.