It’s half term. Deep joy. A week of being at home with the mob, with hubby away, and when the weather is meek and mild. Unlike MiniMe who has remembered he’s a teenager and is testing out all the clichéd behaviours associated with that, and possibly throwing in a few new and innovative ones just to see how that goes. In case you were wondering, this did not go well ;). It’s just possible that I’m a little less tolerant than usual, all things considered, so when I remembered that the KOW Leisure Centre was running Half Term Activity Days it was manna from heaven…and I booked them both in for today and Friday. They get a day of doing lots of things, and being generally kept entertained, amused, and stimulated, and I get a day’s peace and quiet, when I can ride my bike and get on with not killing small children ;).
Tricky though because even given the weather and the time, I wasn’t sure riding would be a good idea. I’m still not 100% and I appear to be brewing a new cold to boot. It never rains but it pours right? However taking it easy and doing the usual loop on my own just seemed a little boring, and wasn’t motivating me. I was considering doing the hilly training loop since at least that has more of a challenge element to it, and I do need to do some hills. Then it turned out that there was a fledgling plan for a few various cyclists to be at Sweets at 11:30am. The thought of adding a social element and a goal to the ride really appealed, but I didn’t want to give up on the hills completely, so I knocked myself up a compromise route.
First up – Shipham Hill. In 15:06 – my 5th best time ever. Ok, not brilliant but still – wow – wasn’t expecting that. I need to do hills. I want to do hills. I need to check that I still have my crawler gear – that ability to just plod up hills however slowly, however long it takes – and it’s quite hard to find hills that are long enough to practice that. Shipham is good because it’s a fairly constant gradient, an average of 9% I think, all the way up. Clearly it doesn’t go on for hours, but it’s a start, and it clearly went pretty well :). Having gone up, it was time to go down from Shipham, and around to Sandford, to go up Winscombe Hill. More plodding, but still doable, and well worth it to go down the fabulous descent on the A38 which I only do once in a blue moon since it’s never on my way anywhere. Up Weare Hill next, which was going pretty well until I got the kind of bit in my right eye that hurts so bad your brain explodes and you literally cannot ride your bike. So I had to stop, fix it, and get back on again. Annoying, but these things happen. Hill climbed, and time to go over the top, past the golf course and the windmill to get to Wedmore, and then down to Sweets.
Ashton Windmill
As you can see it was a grey day. You can see Brent Knoll in the background behind the trees if you look carefully. Anyway it was grey, not very windy, and fairly mild. It certainly made a nice change not to be freezing! I did get a bit chilly at Sweets, as it’s never warm enough there, and sitting around there in clammy clothes is not nice. The coffee was good though, and I chatted to various riders from various groups, which made a nice change from the usual riding by myself and talking to myself! I came home over Mudgeley Hill to warm up, and down through Wedmore where the traffic was playing silly b*ggers so I just weaved my way through and left them to get on with it. Gotta love being on a bike and not in a metal box right? 😉 That just left me to go round the muddy Nyland loop and then back through Cheddar to home. Job done, and at a fairly respectable speed – there were hills in there and everything!
Cycling time: 2:03:23 hrs
Distance: 34.06 miles.
AVS: 16.5 mph.
ODO: 12012 miles
Not so long ago my little back light stopped working again. Sometimes this is batteries. Sometimes it’s just too wet. This time I took it apart to see what I could see, and bits fell out of it…never a good sign! Since I like to have something red flashing back there to make me a little more visible, I replaced it with this which is very lovely. Visible from all round, with three different settings, plus it looks like a spaceship – what more do you want? 😉
Topeak RedLite UFO
It attaches to my saddle bag - handy
I also had to replace the inserts in my Giro Saros helmet. Why is this noteworthy? Well I realised that I’ve never had a helmet last long enough for that to need doing! I’ve been too busy proving that they do what they say on the tin – which thankfully they do *grin*. Somewhat impressively the inserts only cost me £3 too – bargain!
new Giro Saros inserts, in black.