Friday afternoon: childcare sorted, sun shining, and no excuses. Time to ride then. GB has been advised that, post track-standing induced injury, he should rest up for a couple of weeks. Advice that, in the best of traditions, he is ignoring completely… I notice he’s unclipping from the pedals more now tho’… 😉
So – 2 pm in the Square, and we set off into the almost warm sunshine. A positive start. However Axbridge was suffering from the usual meteorological anomalies, as the apparent complete absence of cold headwind proved to be a glitch in the space time continuum…normal service was resumed on the way out to Wedmore. We didn’t really have a route planned, other than to try and not do exactly the same route as usual. We headed out across the levels, and once at Glastonbury I had an idea, so I took GB on a mystery route to Ashcott. It’s very weird doing a route you always do one way in reverse, and there was a certain amount of hoping that I was getting it right…but I was, as we came out exactly where I expected to. Always good 🙂 It was a nice way to get up there actually, so I think I’ll be doing that again.
From there it was down through Shapwick, enjoying the stunning views over to the Mendips, and around Burtle. Most of this was hard slogging into the wind stuff. I was relieved to hear that I wasn’t the only one feeling it and looking forward to putting it behind me – literally! Which happened as we took the shorter cut across to Blackford. Sun on the back, wind on the tail. Nice 🙂 We wended our way from there to Cocklake and down the main road to Cheddar where we showed remarkable restraint and didn’t race…
We did try and see what happens when the person in front slows down after turning right and the person behind doesn’t… Apparently you get a very unusual tyre against tyre noise, some interesting yelling, and distinctly increased adrenalin levels…*grin*. No harm, no foul, as we were both still on our bikes afterwards, which is the kind of non-racing incident I can cope with. From there it was a hop, skip and a jump to home…
Cycling time: 2:29:10
Distance: 38.13 miles
Avs: 15.3 mph
ODO: 3236 miles
About half an hour before home my knee went, swiftly followed by my shoulder and then – a new and exciting pain – my left lower back! Ooh, the novelty. I think I may need to get someone to get a look at how my new saddle is set up… As ever, I was colder than I felt at the time, which took a while to wear off once home. I feel like I cycled a lot further than I did – and am blaming the headwind, the consistent speed and the inconvenient stomach cramps. (I’m a girl – ’nuff said). The wondrous pink pills have helped with most of the aforementioned. A couple of glasses of red wine and a good night’s sleep should fix the rest 🙂
Going to try for 50 miles on Sunday…