For the first time in a very long time, life and circumstances combined in such a way that MiniMe and I were able to go for a ride today.  For some reason his school thinks half term is three days longer than everyone else does, meaning that he’s at home until Thursday, unlike his sister.  The shopping and errands in Weston were surprisingly easily completed, and we were home with plenty of time to get out for an hour or so before lunch.

Today is the first day of November, and it would not be unreasonable to expect it to be cold, wet, and horrible out there, right?  But no.  The unseasonal continues.  It was mild, gloriously sunny, with very little wind.  Again!  Shorts, mitts, sleeveless top…the only concessions to the slightly less than summery temperatures were my arms and his gilet.  Result!

I won’t go pretending it was the world’s most exciting ride – in that we just did the Nyland loop, anti-clockwise at his request.  However it was a lovely one.  He’s been cycling to and from school every day for a couple of months, which isn’t far, but does seem to have improved his bike handling skills, and he was a little less wobbly than before.  I let him wheelsuck as much as possible but it’s not the easiest thing in the world for either of us.  He gets distracted and falls off the back, and I get distracted and speed up!  I made him sprint a couple of times, which was kinda fun.  Well, fun for me anyway 😉  He still hates hills of any sort, but he was definitely a bit faster on the flat, bringing his average speed for our ride to 14.4mph, with which he’s very pleased.  It’s going to be hard to find time for us to get rides in between now and the Spring, so it’s great that this one was a good one 🙂

Cycling time: 0:52:23 hrs
Distance: 12.62 miles.
Avs: 14.4 mph
ODO: 10775 miles

In the meantime, since I can’t be on the bike as much as I’d like, I’m continuing to book events for next year to look forward to.  Up to 4 plus the big one now.  Mad March Hare (already sold out!), Tour of Pembrokeshire, Wheel Heroes (again) and the Dartmoor Classic (also selling out fast).  I’m hoping to do a sportive roughly every two weeks up until the Maratona, so I’ve pencilled in 4 or 5 other weekends I can do and shall be in search of sportives to match those dates as next year’s calendar gets more events added to it.  As for after that, who knows?