Dragged myself out of bed, put on the cycling gear and made some porridge for breakfast. The weather forecast for today was grim....
I headed of to the Herman Miller roundabout for the club leisure ride start at 9:30... I followed one of the guys in (Paul) arriving at the roundabout at the same time as him...Another 2 guys turned up...Nobody else ventured out....(Wimps!)
The route sheet stated..."Leisure Ride to Woodbourough - Duffield Challenge route modified (55 miles)"
Everybody was optimistic as we set of that we may remain dry....I was not! and I was proved right in a big way.
The route to Woodborough was quite straight forward, Chippenham -> Lacock -> Headington -> Stockley -> Cherhill -> West Kennett -> Alton Barnes -> Woodborough
What was NOT straight forward was the strong headwind and the strong rain..at one point I actually had to shield my face as the rain was hitting so hard it was stinging :-(
I was happy at how well I climbed Bowden Hill on the Peugeot... I was expecting some real hill climb issues, however I did myself proud.
At Woodbourough we stopped at the Garden Centre Cafe...I had a nice hot cup of tea and a Bacon Sandwich, unfortunately as I was damp all over I started to cool very quickly and was itching to get going again to warm up.
The ride back to Chippenham was very indirect, taking us south of Devizes then to Trowbridge, the tailwind was very pleasant and I held a good pace....
We then headed north to Atworth, Neston and back home. It was nice to get back out on a group ride other than the chain gang, but I did find myself setting a reasonably quick pace and either towing everybody along OR leaving them behind and waiting for them every so often. It did keep me warm :-) I hope I didn't annoy them.....
The Garmin had the ride as 63.89 miles in 4 hours 9 minutes with an average speed of 15.3 mph, route here...
Interesting as we did followed the route sheet exactly and it said 55 miles....
When I got back home I changed into some warmer, dry clothes and gave son a lift to Melksham.
I spent a quality afternoon washing and lubing the bike....During the ride the back brake was getting less and less responsive, I had adjusted the cable as far as it would go on the ride, but the lever was pulling all the way back to the handlebars....
Another very warn set of shimano "Dissolve in water" brake blocks...
I have replaced them with some slightly different ones.....hoping that I don't wear the rims out now!
After a nice warm shower and another change of clothes, I started cooking Roast Pork for tea :-)
Now listening to the new Epica album :-)
1 comments:
I spent a rather good four hours at the Newport Velodrome with the rest of the wimps in the warm and dry. A lot of fun and speed. I am hooked.
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