Today was an ACG ride. Due to half term, and the Tour of Wessex, there were only 3 of us out this morning. Well, to be fair, we did have a newbie turn up to join us…on a very heavy mountain bike. He’s going to try again on a road bike soon, since he only made it as far as Cheddar before making the (very wise) decision to bail. So I can’t really count him.
That left myself, IH, and today’s ride leader, DM. Being as the route was none of my concern, I’m afraid it gets a little hazy in places as usual. One of the things I love about the ACG is that other people know roads that I don’t and I get to ride them. Novelty is great. In this instance we headed out via Wedmore, criss-crossing the scarey pelotons of Tour Wessex riders, around all sorts of ingenious back lanes to get us to round the back of Wells and to Croscombe so as to go up the big hill there to reach our coffee stop at Hartleys. I’ve never been up that hill before, only down it, and although hard work it wasn’t quite as bad as I was expecting it to be. Always nice when that happens!
IH had been out on the Village last night and whilst not hungover was feeling the effects. Shall I polish my halo a little? ;). It was as windy as ever, and distinctly chilly, though the wind was mostly in our favour on the outward leg. We took it easy on the way out, in order to be a Group, but I have to admit it was hard. It was another indication of the fact that my new wheels rock. I was putting in the usual effort, give or take, and finding myself having to reign it in to keep with the others. More of which later.
Hartley’s was just as lovely as on our last visit, if anything even friendlier. Mind you they’d just had to feed a large contingent of bikers who were preparing to leave as we arrived, so it might just have been the relief to have gotten them all fed and on their way *grin*. There were a couple of other rather serious looking cyclists in there too – we did consider following them on the way back but came to the conclusion that there wasn’t really enough of them (darn whippets) to hide behind so there wouldn’t be much point! Speaking of whippets, we got chased by one going past a farm, and they can’t half move! Made for an interesting couple of minutes I can tell you…
It was even colder and windier when we set off again, and now we were properly into the wind. I had to push off for a bit just to get warmed up again. IH was flagging now, and DM and I stopped to wait for him, in the drizzle, from time to time. We met a few more ToW riders – including some lost ones – who didn’t look like they were having much fun at all, and I was glad that all I had to do was head for home! Once we got out of Priddy and on to the long flat road there, all bets were off. I wanted to push my wheels around a bit and being crap at going downhill I knew DM would catch me in the Gorge. Oh my it was fun :D. Those wheels really do love going round fast. It’s very hard to describe it, but it’s like having an extra gear without having to push any harder. And yes, DM did catch me 3/4 of the way down the Gorge. We don’t call him a mountain goat for nothing 😉
Cycling time: 2:43:11 hrs
Distance: 40.33 miles
Avs: 14.8 mph
ODO: 8648 miles
Another quick blast down the bypass and it was back home again. Not the world’s most enjoyable ride, due to the weather, but kinda fun nonetheless. If it hadn’t been for the ACG I’d probably have been sheltering in the gym instead, and that wouldn’t have been half so nice or so sociable :).