Do you want to know the most amazing thing about today’s ride?  Do you?  Shall I string out the suspense?…. No…?  Ok, I’ll tell.  Well…it didn’t rain on me.  Not once!  Not at all!  Practically unprecedented of late, and much appreciated :).

Deciding what to wear was tricky.  My longs are too big, and therefore baggy, and have, as a result, chafing issues, which are even worse when they’re wet.  Which the forecast suggested might be an issue, and I’m not sure the sore bits already acquired have healed up yet.  So I decided to go with the shorts/leg warmer combo, which is a new one to me.  I only have the legwarmers because it was recommended to have them for the Etape – for descending big hills when it gets chilly…and I didn’t use them even then, though I did use the over gloves that were recommended for the same reason.  At the time the blue option was cheaper than the others, and blue goes with my bike so…  Oh, and my summer cycling socks are blue too.  Snap.

I felt like a very bizarre sort of bumble bee.  And it was doubly weird since my Rapha shorts feel like you’re not wearing them, and the legwarmers, all bar the elastic hold up bit, were barely registering, whereas I was wearing two layers on my top half.  So, as I cycled away from Axbridge, I felt oddly naked from the waist down, which was a tad surreal!

Today’s route was the usual kind of loop, with the odd hill, because Mim wanted to do hills, and I should probably do some hills, what with the fact that all my events from here on in get longer and hillier…  We did Shipham Hill, which I followed Mim up, as usual…but apparently I still managed my 2nd best Strava time.  It was feeling pretty good but I wasn’t pushing, so that’s a pleasant surprise.

We went around via Banwell too, another hill to follow Hope up…

We also went over Brent Knoll, which also seemed less of a challenge than it sometimes does.  So that’s cool.  Or something.  The rest of the route involved the usual pootling around the usual roads, in sociable chatty fashion.  I dropped Mim off at George’s place for coffee and headed for home as I had places to be.  On the way home I took the scenic route to descend Weare Hill, just because I could, and because I rarely go that way.  That’s one of the nice things about being on a bike, you can decide to do what you want when you want to.  I decided to turn right instead of going straight on 🙂  Which is why you get to practice your elocution, in Eliza Doolittle style.  An impressive beast, no?

How now brown cow...

And there was a very pretty cherry tree corner too, which clearly I thought I should share with you.

And that was that really.  A nice two hour loop with a bit of everything and not too much of anything.  Job done :).  It occurs to me that I hadn’t strapped my knee up, but that it didn’t hurt either, which is a turn up for the books, but not something I would want to risk for a longer ride.  I saw my sports physio this week and have some more stretching and strengthening exercises for both knees.  Apparently there’s nothing serious wrong with them per se…I just use them a lot!

Cycling time: 2:08:41 hrs
Distance: 32.11 miles
Avs: 15.0 mph.
ODO: 13354 miles

In other news, today I appear to have entered the Black Rat Bristol Sportive, and also the medio corto route for the Wiggle Dragon Ride.  Well, I wasn’t doing anything else on those weekends, and resting isn’t really my thing, in case you hadn’t noticed.  I now have a sportive every weekend between now and the Maratona.  And I know that might be wrong, but I’m (not so secretly) quite excited about it all 🙂  I like a challenge, and besides, I’m determined to get good at this sportive lark! *grin*.