Today's trundle takes us to the exciting destination of Gilberdyke Post Office :-)
We do have a P.O. in the village, but it only opens two days a week, neither of which is Friday, so
off I pootle to Gilberdyke with my parcel.
There are three possible routes.
The main road isn't busy by comparison with many urban roads, but it's busy enough to be not much
fun, and frankly the traffic calming measures through Newport (no not that one :-)) and Gilberdyke
itself don't help much.
Sustrans Route 65 passes our house and at the end of our road turns left and becomes a gravel track
for a bit. Although "gravel" is stretching it a bit - more like baby boulders in places. Probably
fine on a knobbly-tyred MTB, and actually doable on the trike, but somewhat hard on the bones.
So I usually opt for the inbetween route that goes past the tile factory. Despite this it's actually
quite pretty. The first bit out of the village runs parallel with the canal - I've seen herons there
in summer. A lone pot marigold by the side of the road looks lovely in the sunshine that's filtering
through the mist. It's cold, but not miserably so - just enough to encourage vigorous pedalling,
which can only be a good thing.
Just past the tuning on to the tile factory road is a large pond/small lake. I don't know, but I
suspect this is a spent clay pit, which would explain why the factory is out here in the middle of
nothing much.
In the summer, the fields on the other side of the road were full of lapwings, but now the only
birds visible are seagulls.
No trailer today as I'm only taking a small parcel and picking up a few odds and ends, so I'm going
fairly fast (for me) and trying to go faster (next year's racing to think of :-)).
Past the row of mature oak trees, some of which lean at slightly rakish angles thanks to the strong
winds in these parts. No squirrels today, they must be tucked up in their dreys trying to remember
where they buried the acorns...
Right on to the road that leads back to the main road and on to the level crossing (you can't get
far out of our village without crossing the railway lines). Sometimes i'm lucky and there are no
trains coming, but not today. But at least the gates come down when I'm a couple of hundred yards
away so there's plenty of time to gear down before I stop. And it's only a passenger train in each
direction. Sometimes there are massive goods trains with 25-30 trucks and you can feel the ground
vibrate as they pass.
Up past the farm on the left, keeping an eye out for horses, which sometimes take exception to the
trike. I always stop and demount the flag, when I meet horses. I talk to them too. If they seem
really nervous I stand up as well, so that they can see for themselves that I'm a person and not a
horse-eating monster.
Left past the garden center and the field where the PYO strawberries live in the summer (yum!). This
road emerges on a 90 degree bend in downtown Gilberdyke. Not normally a problem, as the sightlines
are pretty good, but there are roadworks to the left of the junction (in the direction I need to go)
and the road emerges between the traffic lights and the "stop here when lights are red" board.
They are indeed red when I get there, so I stop and signal left while I wait for them to change.
Meanwhile a car trundles up behind me, apparently totally fails to see the traffic light (and no, I
wasn't obscuring it) and merrily proceeds onwards - until the driver spots the car coming towards
them, whereupon they stop, let the other car past and carry on, all while the light is still red....
When the light is green I scoot along to the Post Office, where I find my average for the outward
trip is 9.0mph, which represents definite progress.
I exchange "good mornings" with three other cyclists including a chap on an upright trike with
20-inch wheels - possibly a Di Blasi, but I didn't get a good enough look at it to tell.
On the way back the sun is getting a bit stronger but hasn't dissipated all the mist yet, as the
mournful hooting of the foghorn attests (thanks to the foghorn we know if it's foggy before we get
out of bed here, which can be handy). There are swans visible on the tile factory pond.
The only thing even vaguely resembling a hill on this route is the bridge over the canal, which even
my Ernie Wise-style legs can cope with easily. The slope on the other side gives a nice speed boost
though and I'm trundling quite rapidly towards home, where I'm pleased to find the average has
increased to 9.2. I don't think Ben needs to look to his laurels just yet though :-)
Right, that's all three of my most frequently used routes written up. Now I'll have to find
somewhere else to go. Oh, the humanity! :-)
--
Carol Hague "I was just being a little teapot. It's a bad habit of mine"
- Wyvern, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)