This morning I resorted to coffee.  Well, the thought of going for a ride with GW will do that to a girl.  Anything that might help…but that was all I had.  That and porridge.  Fuel and rocket fuel 😉

I had to meet GW at her place which is about 20 minutes away these days.  Depending on the weather this can be a lovely hurtle down the A38, or a slog.  Guess which it was today?  Well, if I mention the SW 20 mph gusty wind would that give you a clue?

So I slogged my way down to the new pad, and after a brief tour and faff, we were on our way to Clevedon.  As was inevitable, the wind turned out to have a whole heap more W in it that it should have had and it managed to be against us for an large proportion of the time.  I hate wind.  It’s just so sapping…  So loud.  It’s a constant fight – especially with strong cross winds – to keep your bike where you want it to be on the road.  Just drains the life right out of you…

We went up the A38, around the Webbington, over to Congresbury, managed to get lost around Yatton/Claverham as usual, and ended up going up the main road to the bottom of Brockley Coombe to get to Clevedon by which time I was not a happy bunny.  Both shoulders hurt, the wind was annoying, GW was constantly 50ft ahead (probably as well since that way she couldn’t hear me whingeing), I’d had enough, and just wanted to get to where we were going.

It took us 32 miles and over 2 hours to get to Clevedon…which last time I checked was a lot nearer than that.  We sat inside No 5 the Beach on the seafront, and drank good coffee, which perked me up a bit and delayed the inevitable for a while…  BTW, they have very lovely toilets – one of the criteria in our search for the best local café 😉

We came back as close to as the crow flies as possible.  We managed to get the wind behind us occasionally but mostly it stuck to stealthy attacks from the side again.  Restful…not!  I must have been doing something right since GW spent most of the way home sitting behind me though.  After an hour of that my knee started twingeing but luckily we were nearly home.  The downhill from Winscombe was a joyous thing…but probably even more wonderful for GW who got to keep going down…as I swung a left down the bypass, grabbed a tail wind, and flew home 🙂

Cycling time: 3:06:49
Distance: 47.08 miles
Avs: 15.0 mph
ODO: 7398 miles

Man that was hard work!  But when the wind wasn’t killing me, my legs actually felt pretty strong, and the uphills weren’t bothering me particularly either.  Which is all good 🙂