Today, finally, after days of looking at bikes and not being on one, I got to ride my bike.  Which is good, because my head was off on one this morning, and there’s no better cure for that than a decent ride and some outdoor head space.

For some reason I had been going to go and do hill repeats up Cheddar Gorge.  And then I realised that such things are incompatible with my notoriously low boredom threshold.  But for some strange reason hills still beckoned, so I had to plot a route that involved a variety of ups to endure, downs to enjoy, and enough miles to make it all worth doing.  Mentally figuring that out was way more effective than counting sheep last night!

I’m still recovering from the weekend, and thus sleeping a lot, so it wasn’t an early start this morning, but it was my first day off in what feels like forever so I had the time to do both recovering and riding.  After a quick route plot on mapmyride this morning just to make sure I’d got things roughly right, I headed off late morning, and did just what I’d said I would.  I went up – Cheddar Gorge, Blagdon Hill, Rowberrow.  And I totally nailed some downs – Harptree, Burrington, Shipham – *grin*.

It went pretty well.  Maybe even surprisingly so.  OK, so some of it was hard work, but then that’s the point.  Some of it hurt, literally, but since I’m mostly a pain-free zone at the moment, you won’t hear me complaining too much about that.  And the downs were awesome.  Me and the bike felt very in tune throughout – though my poor baby is making some “I am in need of maintenance” noises and I think the saddle position and height need adjusting…  And it may not have been sunny, but although it tried to rain, it failed.  Good for my body, good for my head.  It was therefore, as they say, all good.  Happy Days 🙂

And then I had another long nap to recover.  In our house, in the middle of our street 🙂

Cycling time: 2:20
Distance: 34.3 miles
Avg: 14.6 mph
ODO: 6805.3 miles