Category Archives: ACG

She moves in mysterious ways

Finally an ACG ride that I could actually make.  Thanks to my sportive habit (yes it is an addiction *grin*) I’ve missed the last couple of rides, which is daft considering that I organise them but hey ho.

Having spent another afternoon this week with my pit crew, aka Andrew, getting my bike tweaked and putting the winter wheels and tyres on, I went out a bit early just to do a quick loop around town to make sure everything was working before meeting everyone in the Square.  I met GB coming into town as I left, which was quite amusing, or possibly bemusing for him.  As it turns out all was well with the bike, which was good.  OK, so I miss my summer wheels and my slick tyres and my bike feels a little more carthorse and a little less thoroughbred, but actually it didn’t feel as bad as I’d feared it was going to, and it has to be good training right?

I wasn’t sure how many we’d be, what with the letters RSVP apparently not meaning a great deal, but I knew we’d be at least three and as it turns out, we were five.  Myself, GB, DM, MD and Figgy.  I probably should call him CT, but it’s too late, Figgy has stuck…  GB had created us a route which started with Shipham Hill.  Luckily, having done that loop, I wasn’t comparing like with like, so I didn’t need to see how fast I could go up it.  No personal records set today then.  It was the usual kind of slog, but not unbearable and the little kick up to Charterhouse wasn’t a whole heap of fun, but then it never is.  After that it was pretty much plain, if muddy, sailing over the top of the Mendips.  Actually not so much sailing as if there had been any wind then it would have blown the clouds away.  Instead we were up amongst them with that damp kind of almost drizzle and very limited visibility.  Not to mention seriously mucky roads.  One of those days when being a mouth breather is not a good thing – let’s face it, not all of that is mud, and only one of us has mudguards… Nice ;).  We were running a bit early, since allegedly the café didn’t open until 10:30am, so we tweaked the route a bit to add a few miles, which had the added advantage of taking in one of the best descents locally, through West Horrington and into Wells, where I managed a max of 41.3mph chasing GB downhill.  Much much much fun :).

From there it was just a hop skip and a jump to our coffee stop at Fenny Castle tea rooms, which was a first for the ACG, if not for GB and I.  The coffee and carrot cake proved to be just as good as last time too.  I recommend ordering cake – it arrives instantly.  There was a distinct delay for those insisting on bacon related fodder.  Although how you can eat pancakes and bacon and maple syrup at any time, let alone mid ride, is beyond me.  That’s Figgy for you.  Proof that there is no justice in the world.  If I ate like that I’d be the size of a house.  He’s a whippet – in size and speed!  Still, the delay gave me time to have more coffee, so I wasn’t complaining.  I should also mention that it’s only £1 for a coffee top-up – that’s the kind of deal I like :).  Just FYI – it actually opens at 10:00am…

DM, MD and GB

Figgy post pancakes

Fenny Castle - one for the good coffee stop list

the ACG steeds - all a bit muddy!

Back on the road again, and we were caffeine-fuelled and on the flat – so not hanging around.  There was definitely some half-wheeling going on – tut tut.  *grin*.  As a result we did drop MD and then DM along the way, but with no hard feelings I hope.  By now the sun was coming out, the clouds had cleared, and there were even patches of dry road – ooh, the luxury.   Not on Notting Hill though, which meant descending that with a little more restraint than sometimes.  GB still managed over 43mph though!  Back up the A38, through Cross, and there you go, full circle done, and back to Axbridge again.  I walked through the door at home and got laughed at for the state I was in.  Justifiably – I was proper head to foot mud splattered.  Still that’s what the washing machine is for.  And the shower.  Even my bike is clean again – since I resorted to the slave labour option and employed MiniMe again.  His rates are still unbeatable *grin* – and he did a better job this time too :).

Cycling time: 2:36:54 hrs
Distance: 45.20 miles.
Avs: 17.2 mph
ODO: 10995 miles

Today was one of those days when I was feeling capable.  Which is an interesting choice of word, but does sum it up.  It might be to do with wearing my arms and having to roll them up – rolling up your sleeves feels very get down to business like.  Maybe it was just because my legs were feeling good.  I’m trying to get better at being out of the saddle and when I did get the chance, they were feeling pretty powerful, which was nice.  In other news, my new overshoes, which finally arrived this morning in the nick of time, totally rock, and my new longs (in a size smaller and still a little large – get in!) were definitely an improvement as since they fit better than my current pair, there are less baggy/chafing issues.

Possibly Maybe

Somewhere out there is a cyclist who has quite perfectly described how I’m feeling about my cycling at the moment, and it does seem rude to try and better that, especially since I doubt I can.  But it is a beautiful feeling.  (wo)Man and machine working together, in partnership, doing what we were designed to do.  Well, ok, I probably wasn’t designed to be a cyclist, but there’s an odd satisfaction to making your body work properly…heart rate up, sweating, blood pumping through veins, muscles extending and contracting.  To being fit and healthy, to being so much better than I was, to being out there in the bigger, perspective inducing, world.  It’s that zone, and it’s an awesome place to be, and it’s a drug that keeps you coming back to see if it’s still there, still working…

Which today it was.  Today was an ACG ride, with 6 of us in total gathered at 9:00am- a quite respectable turnout even without the two that didn’t quite make it.  Maybe next time?  I had meant to put together a route last night but for various reasons hadn’t managed to, so there were the usual route deliberations with no-one wanting to make a decision, but something having to be decided.  Eventually we decided to do the usual kind of seaside loop, albeit in reverse.  With gorgeous autumnal leaves, sunshine, blue skies and yes, ok, a little more wind that is ideal but hey, you can’t have everything, right?  As it turns out, it’s a good thing we had dilly dallied before setting off, as with the speed we were doing initially, it only took about 45 minutes to get to the New Castle Inn, which opens at 10:00am.  Luckily they were just opening up, and we were able to drink vats of coffee and discuss plans for next year’s events.  I’m not the only one thinking Etape Acte 2 looks awesome – and I could feel a hint of jealousy creeping in….but no, I have plans of my own, and the Maratona will be awesome 🙂

Time to head for home, with an additional wiggle to add miles and take in a hill as at the speed we were doing, we ran the risk of having only been out for 1 and 1/2 hours, and we all know that’s not acceptable!  *grin*.  In this case that meant adding Rowberrow and Shipham to the route which meant a nice long climb up, and what is one of my favourite descents to get down again.  Cue one massive grin :D.

Cycling time: 1:53:27 hrs
Distance: 31.20 miles.
Avs: 16.5 mph
ODO: 10648 miles

It was a Good ride with a Great Group, and we even managed to mostly stay a Group too, which is, if not unprecedented, still fairly impressive.  I got to go fast every now and then, and to not get dropped on hills, and to feel like, for the moment, I’ve still got it :).

After last Saturday’s ride, having apparently acquitted myself respectably, Matt Stephens from Sigma – asked me who I raced for.  Which is, when you think about it, a fairly massive compliment.  Of course I don’t race for anyone.  But it is an interesting thought…  Having said that, I’m perfectly capable of having accidents on the bike all by myself, let alone amidst the in-fighting of a cycle race, and it has been suggested that the chances are that I would get hurt, which is not ideal and would not go down well.  But I can’t help it if there’s a little bit of me wondering if I’d be any good at it, and half thinking I might be…  It’d be nice to be good at something :).

Blame it on the rain

This morning it was sunny and lovely.  It was.  Honest.  Oh how deceptive appearances can be.  It was even still fairly pleasant and warm when Mim and I left my house at around 9:30 am this morning, albeit with a really strong westerly wind which we could have lived without.  However from there on in, from a weather point of view, it was all downhill…  Mim had an errand to run in Weston-super-Mare so we headed off that way.  Towards some quite obvious weather.  With that strong wind blowing in our faces and blowing that weather towards us.  There was only one way this was going…

As we turned right past the Queens Arms in Bleadon to go up Bleadon Hill proper the drips started.  The hill itself was fine, but as I plodded my way up the rain got increasingly heavy and by the time we reached a very conveniently placed and totally sheltered bus shelter at the top it was starting to fling it down properly.  We took refuge and watched the waves of rain coming over and past us for a while until finally it brightened a little leaving the skies dry but the roads far from it.  All so good so far really though, and we made our way through the traffic to PC World, where the errand was duly run.

However as we left the rain was starting up again and this time there was no avoiding it, and equally no avoiding the fact that the only way home was on two wheels and through it.  The heavens opened, the rain came down so hard that on bare skin it actually hurt, visibility dropped to nothing, there was as much water coming back up from the road as down on to it, and within minutes we were soaked to the skin, with puddles for shoes.  It was so torrential it was nearly funny.  Nearly.

So we came back through Hutton.  Into Banwell and up the hill past the Caves.  Across and up Winscombe Hill to get home.  Well if it was going to be a short ride, I wanted to at least get some training benefit out of it, and that mean hills.  Besides which, going up hill in weather like that is the only way to get warm!  The roads were like rivers, demonstrating just how much water had come down in a short space of time.  However hard I pushed it, I wasn’t really getting any warmer, thanks to the now distinctly chilly wind.  I really should know better.  My problem is that I don’t realise how cold I am until I get home, and it then takes me hours to warm up again.  Which is why I’m now sitting here in a fleece with a blanket ’round my legs!

Cycling time: 1:22:13 hrs
Distance: 20.45 miles.
Avs: 14.8 mph
ODO: 10074 miles

So not the world’s greatest ride, and I may have to go and do an hour at the gym later to make up for it.  However it was better than no ride, and proves that we’re really not fair weather cyclists!  I wonder how long it’s going to take for my shoes to dry out?

Here’s a photo of Mini Me, Me, and Dad on Sunday – to remind myself what a sunny ride is like 🙂

Mini Me, Me, and Dad

All I wanna do is have some fun

The Cycling Mayor has no broadband and is NOT amused.  Especially after two days of dealing with the non-uk based, hidebound, routine fixated, Orange customer service centre.  I wrote this on the laptop to add later, and since I’ve just managed to turn my HTC Android into a wifi hotspot, it looks like I get to add it now.  Which if I was more of a geek would probably be very exciting.  Oh who’m I kidding?  I’m a geek and I’m thrilled to be back online! *grin*

So with no broadband, the sun shining, and the wind being no worse than expected, it was time for a stress busting ACG ride this morning.  It was not the usual ACG ride.  It was one of those rare occasions when we try get as many ACG people together as possible – from the usual ACG group, to the Leisure Group, with three generations of my family in to boot.  Yes – me, miniMe and Dad.  With as many official ACG tops as possible too.

The ride out was a two group affair – the 5 faster folk were off, and after the odd attempt to let us three catch up, wended their own way whence we were going.  Leaving the the aforementioned generational grupetto to find our own way to Sweets Peat Museum café where, as it turns out since the fast group had taken the long way round, we were the first to arrive.  Well that’s not strictly true, the Boy Wonder, having gotten his timings in a twist as usual, had missed meeting up with us in the Square and had sprinted to and fro to find us before going straight there, so he was waiting inside reading the paper.

The four of us moved to sit outside and were basking in the sunshine when first the five fast folk, and then the Leisure Group, pulled in to join us, making a total of 17 cyclists sat in a row.  Or a circle around two tables more to the point.  Which is a pretty good turn out.   There was a fair degree of hilarity as various exploits and tales of derring do were recounted, and plans for the Tour of Britain spectator ride were discussed.  Good company and good conversation in the sun.  Very nice.  In fact one of the main reasons we’re a Group in the first place :).

However this is the Axbridge Cycling Group, not the Axbridge Coffee Group, so it was time to go and do what we’re supposed to do.  Well let’s face it, how else were we going to get home?  Although various variations on the return route were taken on the way home, we all ended up in the right places eventually.  I have to admit to having resorted to some very juvenile behaviour from time to time, but I can’t help it, I do like sprinting :).  I like that putting your foot down and hurtling away bit, and then the totally knackered feeling afterwards when you just can’t do anymore.  I made it on to the front and up to 29.6 mph on the straight back from Wedmore – which was mighty close to my 30mph goal for that stretch, but there was no cigar.  OK, so the others weren’t really racing, but it was a whole heap of fun for me. 🙂

We were blessed with the weather, if you ignore the wind, which let’s face it was also a blessing across the Levels so it would be churlish to complain about the times when it was less than helpful.  It was way better than forecast, and at this rate, it may be the last time we see the sun before next Spring!  MiniMe did his best, and I can’t wait for the day when his best is a little faster.  He coped really well though, and it was good to have Dad along to keep him company when I couldn’t keep my coiled spring legs coiled any longer.   I tried, I did, honest!  But the fact that I dragged my first half average of 14.something up to 16.0mph on the way home shows that I wasn’t doing a very good job of it by then. 😉

Cycling time: 1:51:18 hrs
Distance: 29.58 miles.
Avs: 16.0 mph
ODO: 10054 miles

Courtesy of the Eurobike Demo Day I have some fancy new Pearl Izumi tailorable shoe inserts that I tried out for the first time today and that did actually make my cycling shoes more comfortable.  They may actually have helped my knee which did little more than twinge a couple of times today.  Having support under the arch of the foot was a weird but not unpleasant feeling but I guess time will tell whether they’re really helping.

PS:  did you like the atypical alliteration?

True colours

Time to re-engage with normal life.  Which in this case, it being a Sunday morning, meant that it was time for an ACG ride.  The expected 3 riders turned into 4.  Myself, GB, GH (no longer the newbie as he’s now a fully paid up member), and the not been with us for quite a while KG.

Obviously we hadn’t planned a route beforehand because that would have involved a degree of forward planning, so we spent the usual 5 minutes arguing (sorry debating) about where we should go.  Having not wanted to go to Glastonbury across the Levels and exposed to the wind, GB was persuaded to go there on the basis that we would go by a different and not totally flat route to get there.  I just wanted good coffee, and that’s where good coffee is.  I also wasn’t sure how I’d be feeling after two weeks holiday and didn’t fancy big hills.

We kinda made the route up as we went along, which looked a little like this, and it went pretty well.  We were all fairly well matched, up until near the end where the fact that KG hasn’t been able to get out much finally got the better of him.  Not that it stopped him racing up the hill past Panborough and dropping us all just like he always does!  Having said that, it’s not just him, we’re all pretty competitive which is neither big nor clever but is occasionally fun *grin*.

For the first time in for what seems like forever but is only actually since March, I had a puncture, just before we got into Fairyland.  A large thorn/nail end was quite clearly the culprit.  Luckily it was the front tyre which is always easier to deal with, and if I say so myself, I did a pretty good job of changing the tube and getting it all sorted.  All by myself too, since as we have seen previously, changing a tube on an ACG ride is a bit of a spectator sport… 😉  I was a bit worried I wouldn’t have got enough pressure back into it and would either puncture again or just be slowed down by it, but neither of those things happened.  Result!

We had coffee at Heaphy’s in the sun, with the addition of Orangina for me which always makes me smile, and breakfast related sandwiches for KG and GB which seems to make them smile too.  KG has never forgiven me for taking the ACG to a vegetarian cafe there… *grin*.  We came back the direct route, interacting with at least 3 other cycling events – the Wiggle Mendip Sportive, something Strawberry Line related, and something that involved tri bars, sleeveless jerseys and silly looking helmets…  Admittedly three different target audiences, but you’d think some degree of co-operation with regards to dates/routes might have been a good idea…  I bet the motorists around here have well and truly had enough of cyclists today!

Cycling time: 2:14:35 hrs
Distance: 40.01 miles.
Avs: 17.8 mph
ODO: 9866 miles

See how fast we were?  Awesome!  Especially as it was windy, and we weren’t trying massively, being as how G stands for Group and we were trying to keep it that way.  Only I do feel like my legs are that much better these days, and it’s just so nice to go fast when fast is an option, and to push up what hills there were.  Even if GB can always out climb/sprint me.  Shall I add that to my goal list – beating GB? 😉  Clearly Cornish training rides haven’t done me any harm, and I didn’t lose too much fitness being away.  I should probably wash the bike now – the poor thing is covered in two weeks worth of grime – but I think that’s a job for later this week… 🙂

Whole of the moon

I’ve not been on the bike since Tuesday, and if how I felt today is anything to go by, then the gym counts as resting.  So you can all stop telling me to rest! *grin*.

Today was an ACG ride.  A sunny, warm, relatively wind free, Saturday morning saw 4 of us gather in the Square at 9:30am.  IH, the MD (finally back with us) and our newest fully paid up member, GH.  4 is a good number.  I can easily count to four, which makes keeping track of everyone easier.  Aren’t I clever? ;).

Considering the weather, and the summer holidays and the fact that no-one else had come up with a route, it was time to do my seaside loop, and hope that Weston hadn’t woken up too much by the time we went through it.  Well, it’s not an early rising town, so it was a calculated risk that paid off.  Judging by the aroma, the residents, temporary or otherwise, were too busy eating doughnuts to be bothered by us.  Makes a change from the usual smell of breakfast bacon ;).  Anyway, It’s a really nice route.  The odd hill, lots of nice country flat, and pretty quiet roads.  Oh, and of course the seaside!  I’m used to it, the ACG aren’t and seemed to like it, which is good.

I had legs like coiled springs today.  Totally irrepressible.  I’m sure if the usual crowd had been there I’d have been put firmly back in my place, but today the one first up the hills was me.  Every hill.  We had coffee at the New Castle Inn in Kewstoke, after the kicker of a hill up past the Commodore, and I even pushed it all the way up there, though it did take me a minute or so to get my breath back when we stopped.  I think I’ve been watching too much Tour de France!  Nothing a large Americano couldn’t fix though *grin*.

I did do my best to hang back, I did, really honestly, as I do know what G stands for, but it just wasn’t happening.  Not when I was doing that well going uphill.  Me, dropping people?  Go figure!  It’s just so much fun pushing it when you can :).  And on the flat I was flying…  Me and my bike were definitely in the zone and I think it’s safe to say the cycling addict got her fix *grin*.

It was just one of those days that a bicycle is made for.  And it would be rude not to make the most of it.  Sorry guys! 🙂

Cycling time:1:59:59 hrs
Distance: 33.61 miles
Avs: 17.0 mph
ODO: 9606 miles

You gotta be

After spending yesterday afternoon worshipping at the shrine of bicycle maintenance (aka Scorpion CS) I knew I was going to need a ride today to check that everything was shipshape and ready to go again.  So I issued a call to arms, and arranged an impromptu ACG ride, mainly because I selfishly fancied a ride in company rather than on my tod.

It  being “my” ride, I decided it should include very good coffee, and that of course, as my regular readers will know, means going to Heaphy’s Café in Glastonbury.  I’d bore you with the details but, “it’s astounding, time is fleeting…” and I have other places to be, so to cut a long story short, I present you with my stats:

Cycling time: 2:08:49 hrs
Distance: 34.30 miles
Avs: 15.7 mph

There were three of us, fairly well matched:  IH, a recent newbie GH, and obviously, me.  Coffee included carrot cake, and the welcome return of Orangina, as well as all the usual joys of a Fairyland Saturday morning.  It was a fairly flat, scenic, sociable, sun-blessed, relatively wind free ride.  The sort of which dreams are made *grin*.  Do you know how lucky we are to live somewhere where other people come on holiday?  Lucky indeed :).

As for the bike, well the saddle seemed a little low on the way out.  I was getting that “knees around ears” feeling so we tweaked it all of 4mm after coffee and it seemed much better on the way back.  The new chain went ’round – always good – and the brake pads seemed to stop me.  In fact the front break is proper vicious now which is nice as long as you remember that!  My lovely new Kalas shorts were very comfy and, by virtue of being a bit shorter than my other pair, helped with my “fade to tan” goal – none of those razor sharp lines for me (see rule 7) *grin*.

Greased lightning

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 :).

What a girl wants, what a girl needs…

What I want is to be better at going up hills so apparently what I need to do is just to go up more of them.  Since all things come in threes, though I don’t for the life of me know why, and the last two rides have been hilly, it seems only right that today’s ACG ride should also be a hilly one.  Putting the route in the hands of one of our mountain goats, DM, ensured that this would be the case.  Whilst also making it not my fault!  😉

There were six of us this morning.  GB was off doing family things but is back now, and I believe out doing our route as we speak, no doubt faster and better.  (But probably wetter *grin*).  I was only able to approximate it for him though as I got a little confused around Nempnett Thrubwell, which I understand happens a lot…

However back to us.  Myself, clearly.  The aforementioned DM, complete with very fetching bandana.  SD who, and maybe it has something to do with his mountain biking, seems to be just as happy at the back chatting as out at the front, or racing the BW up hills.  Yes, BW was with us.  Showing us up as ever.  Well, maybe not SD.  That leaves IH, back with us after a break, and a newbie, AW.  He does time trials, which tends to indicate how he feels about hills.  It all worked out swimmingly really.  It’s nice and easy to count to 6.  BW and SD did their thing at the front, occasionally interchanging with DM and I, and the other two brought up the rear.  There was quite a bit of stopping and regrouping, but that’s a good thing.  A G for Group good thing.  Not to mention allowing us to catch our breath from time to time, or “admire the view”…

Without meaning to be rude in any way, it was nice to have two slower folk with us.  Because it meant I wasn’t the last up the hills.  Very often with the ACG these days the one bringing up the rear by very virtue of always being at the rear is me!  It was nice to be reminded, for PMA purposes, that it’s only compared to the usual mob that I suck…  And to be fair, I did myself proud going up the hills.  They have definitely gotten easier.  Well I suppose the hills haven’t gotten easier at all since I’m guessing erosion hasn’t affected them much in the time I’ve been cycling.  In which case then I’ve got to admit I’m getting better, I’m getting better all the time…(I couldn’t get much worse)… Hands up if you’re singing a little song in your head now…

So, hills.  Sparrow Hill.  Followed by a stretch on the mostly flat to warm the legs up.  A very long slog up from Rodney Stoke to the top of the Mendips.  Slogs that get steeper at the end like that should be banned…  Then there were some interesting hills over Nempnett way.  I’m really hoping we actually went up Awkward Hill – how great a name is that?  On the way back after a well earned coffee stop there was Sandford Hill and finally Winscombe Hill, just to round things off.  Probably around 2100ft of climbing.  Not bad as these things go.  Mind you, that probably depends on which of the 6 of us you ask :).

Coffee was at the perfectly pleasant but exorbitantly expensive Walled Garden, aka the Ethicurean.  With variable prices too it would appear, since back in March scones were £3 each and today they were £3.50!  I’m sorry – but that’s taking the p*ss.  Not having that much money on me, I stuck to the usual caffeine fix.  I gather the cakes were lovely.  My coffee, at a more usual £2, was nice enough.  But still…  Yes, I know, you can’t take it with you.  But in order to try and take it with you, you have to have it in the first place!

OK, scone related rant over.  Probably.  Just as we were leaving AW discovered he had a puncture so we all stood around in the sunshine and let him change it – very efficient he was too – whilst clearly intimidating all the “normal” people having to run the gauntlet of our presence to get to the café.  We’re very scarey.  Or maybe it’s just the Lycra…

On the way down to Wrington, at a reasonable gravity induced speed, there were for some reason parked cars on the LHS and the odd pedestrian milling around.  I was leading and took a wide line around them and, as a car was approaching from the opposite direction, I shouted “car up” as you do.  Plenty of room, no problem, etc.  The numpty pedestrian nearest decided to tell me I should “get a bell”.  Yeah, cos that would really get your attention.  And by the way – you’re not a car, and I wasn’t talking to you, I’d already avoided you walking in the road!  Numpty.   (You know I thought I’d feel better about that once it was out of my system but no.  Ah well).

All in all it was a pretty good ride.  There was a strong Southerly wind, blowing serried ranks of dramatic clouds over our heads, and making for some interesting temperature variations.  It tried to rain a couple of times, but BW sorted that out by putting his waterproof on *grin*.  Mind you, it did give him yet another chance to display his “look ma no hands” cycling.  Particularly irritating when you’re going downhill, hands on the brakes, paying attention for all you’re worth…and his hands aren’t even on the handlebars let alone the brakes!  I’m not jealous.  Much 😉

Cycling time: 2:43:04 hrs
Distance: 33.1 miles
Avs: 14.4 mph
ODO: 8288 miles

Anyway as I was saying – a good ride.  More hills under my slightly less tight belt 🙂

Let go your heart, let go your head

It’s a hard knock life.  Honest.  *grin*.  OK, it’s not.  Not when I get to spend a few hours cycling in the sun as I did this morning.  On a day like this, why would you be doing anything else?  You may drive past me in your metal box, shooting daggers at me with your eyes as I presume to take up space on your road…but I know who’s happiest, and it ain’t you 🙂

Today was an ACG ride, and a relatively well attended one at that.  There was me, GB, SD, BDR, DM, the Boy Wonder, and a triathlete lady who’s joined us once before and shall henceforth be know as TriC.  We did a loop out to Fairyland for coffee and back – and as you can see we managed to enlarge the loop quite a bit, by including Nyland on the way out, and Shapwick/Ashcott on the way back.  It was, not to put too fine a point on it, glorious out there.  Warm and sunny, with a fairly low eejot quotient, and a wind that was more cooling than irritating.  You really couldn’t ask for nicer 🙂

Glastonbury was up and running – I think the sun brings them out too.  Many multi-coloured folk living up to expectations.  We were treated to some very Christian singing too, although bearing in mind how much God apparently loves us, you’d have thought the songs would be more cheerful and that they’d look more happy about it!  I think they need to work on their marketing strategy…*grin*.

Given that GB and I are supposed to be taking it easy before Monday’s event, and TriC was a little slower than last time, we weren’t pushing it too much for most of the ride.  G stands for Group and we made an effort to stay toGether.  However once she’d peeled off to go home, the lads hurtled off like greyhounds out of the gate!  I didn’t even try to keep up for most of that, but I did get to take the lead from the bottom of Rug Hill to Cheddar and I pushed for all I was worth…well, I could hear the lads freewheeling behind me! *grin*.  It was fun though…and as you can see from the avs, we weren’t hanging around.  I felt positively capable 🙂

Cycling time: 2:42:23
Distance: 44.90 miles
Avs: 16.6 mph
ODO: 8006 miles

As you can see the “new” bike has now done over 8000 miles which is kinda cool.  Gotta love figures.  Bearing in mind all that has been done and is to be done to it, I think the only fully original part to remain will be the frame! To continue my shopping spree, yesterday I ordered a new Topeak Large Wedge Saddle Bag to replace the current rather tatty looking one, and also a Topeak top tube bag to hold all my bars and things for events.  Consider it a treat for the bike for doing so well 🙂  My birthday money has now well and truly run out – but I’ve made it go a long way!

And on the progress front, my knee seems to be doing quite well, and I’ve been nailing right hand bends a lot better of late.  Not all of them by any means, but definitely better than I was.  Progress all ’round 🙂