Yesterday’s ride was a non event since, due to an Friday night where I didn’t eat enough and drank way more than enough, I totally slept through my alarm, and its many repeats.  Even hubby couldn’t wake me, so he gave up, turned the alarm off and left me to it.  I woke up 8 minutes after I was due to meet SH in the Cheddar…and was NOT happy.  Having said that, it would probably have been a very bad ride, so it was probably all for the best really.  I was cross though, since I was nervously looking forward to the challenge that the Burnham run is…and I also hate to let people down.  Ah well, spilt milk and all that.  Sorry SH (again!).

So even though I was out again last night (ooh, get me, a social life and everything!) I was pretty determined not to let the same happen again today.  I was up before the alarm, home by 8:00am, and in the Square at 9:00am to meet the ACG as planned.  DM has a very enviable shiny new bike which, conveniently, is going to match the ACG kit perfectly.  I’d give you facts about it but a) that would be geeky and b) I’m not that kind of geek.  It was black, white, shiny, sleek…will that do?  New bikes are very lovely 🙂

Initially it had seemed chilly, and it had clearly rained over night, but what must have been the tail end of that cleared, the sun came out, and the temperature rose.  My gilet didn’t even make it out of the Square, as I quickly stuffed it in my bag before we left.  Mind you, the wind, considerable, blustery and strong, wasn’t going anywhere, and proved to be a bit of a pain for a lot of the ride.

In the absence of any better plans, four of us did the first half of my usual training loop, round to Sweets Peat place for coffee.  I reckon if we’d sat there long enough, every cyclist in Somerset would have passed by…it was one of those days.  After a decent natter in the sun, KG headed straight for home, being due at Pageant rehearsals.  The remaining three of us wiggled home in Brownian fashion, affecting the route every time we came to a junction.  We met a couple of other ACG members heading the other way at one of them, which was random but nice.

When the wind was behind us, the sun shining, with clear views for miles, all that was separating us from Le Tour was a few tournesols.  Well, ok, not all.  In my dreams!  But since they were going up big hills today and we weren’t, I reckon we might have had the edge on the happy front 😉

However, and I still don’t know what happened, things fell apart in Wedmore.  We were heading towards the golf course, up the hill there.  I plodded up, and when I got to the top I was all alone.  No sign of them.  I went back down, but still, no sign…  So I went back up again, and decided I didn’t really have any other option that to head for home, so I did my kinda dancin‘ all the way home.  This mostly involved me pretending to be Thor Hushovd and sprinting as fast as I could for home, for no particular reason other than that I was quite enjoying it *grin*.  Hopefully nothing untoward happened to the other two and they had as much fun getting home as I did.

Cycling time: 2:01:28
Distance: 32.58 miles
Avs: 16.1 mph
ODO: 5009 miles

I’m surprised the average speed wasn’t faster and I guess the wind may have had something to do with that.  I’m sure I was going faster than that though.  It certainly felt fast.  However, considering my weekend, it’s a miracle I was going at all…let alone at speed.  There’s clearly no justice – I really should have been suffering more *grin*.

And finally: today saw another landmark – my bike has now done over 5000 miles.  I like that 🙂

Update: they were fine – it was just a question of missed turns and not catching up.  So that’s alright then 🙂