15th November 2009 (Sunday)

Got up chilled for a while the took Rosie (dog) for a walk with wifey up Morgans Hill, the weather was completely different from yesterday, the sun was out and it was lovely and warm :-)

When we got back home I got changed into cycle gear, had lunch then set off at 12:20 ish, I was a billy no mates and went of by myself....

Although the weather was fine and dry the roads were still a bit distressed from yesterdays rough weather.

I headed out to Biddestone and picked up part of the Chain Gang route in reverse, we always cycle up the Fosse Way into wind and I thought it would be nice to cycle down it with a tail wind...and it was nice....very nice :-) Perhaps we ought to employ Romans to build modern roads??

I headed down some of the roads? or were they farm tracks! that I traversed last weekend with Richard

This time I had a good view of the tree lined road going into Chavenage House

Chavenage marked the first real climb and things were going very well :-) There was a short, and slow descent (Due to a wet and leafy road) before the next and slightly more significant climb towards Hyde. Then what would in the summer be a mighty fast descent to Old Neighbouring, unfortunately due a wet, leafy and pot holed surface it was a slow descent... I actually had to stop half way down to retrieve a full 750ml water bottle that had vibrated out of the carrier :-(

Then things started to get interesting with a series of challenging climbs...

Old Neighbouring to the top of Chalford Hill not sure of the gradient but I would guess 1:6, I warmed up nicely :-)

Then another slow on the brakes descent :-( But the valley at the bottom was worth the ride :-)


I think I did see a few glimpses of the Thames & Severn Canal route...

After a short respite it was into another steep climb, this time the lane was a bit less traversed and a lot greener, staying seated was the only option, any standing left the back wheel to spin.

Another short slow descent and then last of the 'real' climbs...

Then it was quite literally down hill home! Even the headwind made very little impact on my ride back home!

I did get back home a little later than I had planned, I hadn't really factored in to well the impact of the climbs and the slow descents (Some of the descents were almost as slow as the climbs!) It was good to get back out onto a 'normal' road surface and get a decent speed up.

I stopped to take a photo of the sun going down.

It started to get a bit cold at this point! but as I knew my planned route home I switched the Garmin display to Virtual Partner and raced the baseline 15mph avg me home (I was over a mile off the pace, I got home just under half a mile ahead - not bad over 12 miles)

The Garmin had the ride as 68.3 miles in 4 hours 31 minutes with an average speed of 15.1 mph, route here...

When I got home I showered and changed then cooked tea...I will wash and lube the bikes tomorrow evening!