The greens are turning gold, the wind is blowing cold, the year is growing old…
…but there are still two sportives to go! Having not been out on the bike as much as I would like in the last month or so, I’ve been feeling a little less confident in my ability to do the miles, especially as all my recent rides have been in that 2 – 2 1/2 hour/30+miles band. In order to set myself up right mentally for those events, I needed to get a long ride in and today was the day.
As it turns out, rather longer than I had planned. Due to various reasons, youngest was a piece of unprinted homework short this morning. Pointing this out 30 seconds before she was due to walk out of the door was possibly not the time to do so, and there was nothing to be done about it. However I had an unprecedented fit of parental generosity and decided to print it out and get it to her on my way to ride. So I printed it. Carefully rolled it up in a plastic envelope. Put in safely my back pocket and rode to Mim’s…by which point it had vanished. Being as I was early, I turned tail and retraced my route. No joy. I got all the way home and printed it out again, rolled it up in yet another plastic envelope, stuffed it down my jersey this time, arranged to meet Mim at the school, set off again, found the old one on the way back, slightly trashed (typical!), and finally got her homework to the school for her, hopefully in time. Which meant that by the time I met Mim I’d already done half an hour’s riding, rather faster than usual! But hey, youngest will thank me, right? ;).
Having finally met up, our departure was further delayed by an unpredicted heavy rain shower, so we stood under a tree and contemplated the wisdom of going for a ride at all since the gods did not seem entirely on my side. However the rain passed, and we were all dressed up (in lycra obviously) with somewhere to go, so we did. Go that is.
And this is where we went. If joining the dots is more your kind of thing then it goes Cheddar, Wedmore, Shapwick, High Ham Hill, Pitney, Somerton, Butleigh, Glastonbury, Wells, Old Bristol Road to Priddy, Cheddar Gorge and home. 762 metres of climbing, so not flat. I’m trying to make a point of going up hills I would normally avoid, hence the Old Bristol Road climb which is a properly long slog and made High Ham look piddly. The sun came out eventually, and the initially merely irritating wind got much worse, turning Cheddar Gorge into a very unpleasant wind tunnel. Pedalling down the Gorge, with wet tarmac and unpredictable gusty side winds? Nice. Not. Thanks go to the (probably) LEJOG cyclists that held up the traffic behind me for a bit, and then to the car that did get behind me for keeping a properly respectful distance and not adding to my heebie jeebies!
It all went pretty much according to plan. I made it up the hills, and enjoyed going down them – with the exception of the Gorge of course. Mim did have a tendency to half wheel or hurtle off and leave me behind – and she’s clearly not keen for me to be in the front even when I can be. Still I guess it’s good for her to be better than me, and good for me to try and keep up with her, so it all worked out 🙂
Cycling time: 3:53:11 hrs
Distance: 61.86 miles.
Avs: 15.8 mph
ODO: 10205 miles
Not bad. Same speed as the other day, even when faced with more wind and bigger hills. I definitely feel more set now, which will help massively when it comes to those events. As long as I remember to eat and drink properly I’ll be fine :).