Cheers Cuz, glad you're enjoying it!

Thanks, yeah the RideWithGPS viewer is pretty flexible, and as you say OSM outdoor is pretty good for showing both railway lines and trails. I don't have a smartphone, so instead have a dedicated Garmin unit onto which I download maps. This works pretty well - I've got detailed maps for 6 countries on it at the moment - but it does make sourcing them (without spending a fortune!) a bit of a challenge. For the UK I'm using the maps created by TalkyToaster, which are inexpensive composites (I think) of OSM and OS sources.

They're very detailed - really good for rights of way, and even have power lines, parking spaces, etc. But apparently not railways! It might be something odd I'm doing in the Garmin configuration...

The version is OSM Outdoor which shows the railway lines.

Mike

Hi Jon
I am realy enjoying your local rides.
Re railway lines on maps up in the right corner of your ride with GPS map sho should find a maps option pull down, the default being Ride with GPS. Anyway choose OSM. The cycling version has all the local cycle routes and paths and is quite hard to read but there in another version called Country or something similar which does show railway lines quite clearly.
Cuzzy Mike

Haha, yeah it's a consequence of the weird floorplan of the house where there's nowhere sensible to store the bike outside, but there is a large storage room and small garden, but you have to go through the kitchen to get to it! So wheeling the bike through the kitchen has become at least "normalised" :-D

Huh. You get to load up in the kitchen...

Thanks Kathleen - absolutely, it's amazing what you start seeing in apparently familiar places when you bring "fresh eyes" to them. It's very gratifying you're enjoying my ramblings - being able to write for an unfamiliar audience definitely helps that process.

Ah interesting - I'll have to check out the Bike Life continuity community out on cycle365. Thanks!

Getting to know your own neighbo(u)rhood in new ways is one good thing to come out of pandemic life. When we first started doing challenges a few years ago on Bike Life, the day rides site of CGOAB, that was the biggest lesson we learned (minus the pandemic part). The other lesson was that despite how tired you were of your own neck of the woods, everyone else found it new and interesting.

I live in Silicon Valley. I'm long since bored with the roads and the traffic. But doing posts during the Bike Life Challenge or coffeeneuring challenge forced me to be creative and to look closer, to find new things to tell people about, and for me to learn about. I'm glad you had that experience also over the past few months. As you know I've been loving your jaunts because the area is new to me, and I love the history you've been imparting. It's good to see daily life going on in other realms. Reading about your local rides has been as interesting to me as reading one of your tour journals.

BTW, some Bike Life comaraderie continues on cycle365.life. It was started as an alternative to Bike Life, since day rides were understandably not within the parameters for posting on this touring site.

Amazing what you can have by taking a sandwich from home to work instead of buying lunch each day.

Yogi Berra! This always makes me think of a similar quote which I seem to be using a lot at the moment, from Woody Guthrie: "Take it easy ... but take it!"

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Cheers Mike!
Ah, so in this case it's not - I'd like to say it's principal, but the truth is I've just never gotten around to getting a smartphone! So these photos are all from a little dedicated compact camera (a Sony DSC-WX350) - it's fairly basic but seems to have improved the results, especially considering my lack of photographic skill.

Of course this means if it does stop photographing it's not much use for anything else. So rather relieved it mysteriously "recovered"!

Hi Jon
Great pics as usual.
BTW is that dodgy camera one of those that can also make phone calls and find satelites for the Ride With GPS app?

Mike

Thanks Kathleen, glad it's enjoyable! Yep, the fens are a really strange landscape, quite atypical really, and are certainly the lowest elevation in the country. If the pumps (now electric, but originally these were all wind powered and set up by Dutch engineers) are ever turned off, the whole area would eventually slowly flood again.

Ah, thanks, yep could be. I wasn't sure if it was injured or sick in some way at first, but it looked quite intact when I passed it, so that would make sense!

Thanks Scott! I think my photography is (slowly) improving ... though it might just be having a better camera!