30th January 2010

As I am getting up early and travelling off for a cycle ride (Audax at Ashton Keynes) it was not particularly appropriate for me to rush out first thing on my bike this morning! So I didn't go out on the Chain Gang, wifey n me went out for a walk with Rosie (dog) instead...

The plan was to drive over to the Savernake Forest, go for a jolly long energetic march (My idea not wifey's) then stop in Marlborough on the way home for a nice warming brunch, and as soon as we hit home I could get changed and race out on the bike for an hour or three :-)

Rosie however was being a complete pain in the arse...so we stopped at West Woods instead.

Redbikes had me thinking about GPS software for phones, I have a paid up and valid licence for RunGPS. It was my original choice for cycle tracking and navigation (but I couldn't sort out the battery life/recharge cycle to suite the requirements for JOGLE) but I do a lot of walking as well as cycling so I thought I would put the software to use to track my walking distance...
We walked 2.5 miles and it was freezing cold! Although it was worth it as we saw two lots of deer :-) ...you can see the RunGPS trace here...

When we got back home I had a lovely bacon sarnie, and then set about making a traditional Bolognese for tea...(Interestingly it uses milk and white wine in the ingredients)- I kept the garlic but dropped the star anise and only used two sticks of celery (Celery is minging in my opinion!)

At 1 I finally managed to set of on my cycle ride :-)

I headed of on the Chain Gang route...with a few added hills and a little further distance :-) I did take the Action Cam, as I wanted to record the hills.....but as the camera is always level with the bike and both wheels are always on the ground...all hills look level....(I must build some sort of self levelling jig to mount the camera on)

I was really quite pleased with myself, I was holding a reasonable 15-16 mph into some reasonably strong winds.

1300		1.5 °C	NNW	11 mph		50 km	1002 hPa, Rising
1400		2.1 °C	WNW	11 mph		50 km	1003 hPa, Rising
1500		1.7 °C	NW	11 mph		40 km	1003 hPa, Rising
1600		1.8 °C	NW	8 mph		45 km	1003 hPa, Rising
1700		0.2 °C	NW	6 mph		40 km	1004 hPa, Rising

I was also quite pleased that I didn't venture out on the chain gang, even after a mornings worth of sun on the roads, there were still some 'interesting' patches of ice.

There was a nice tail wind up the Fosse-Way, the journey back to Corsham was nice and quick, the computer had the average speed at 16 mph for the 38 miles (Over the last couple of weeks the chain gang has been doing an average of just over 17 mph - So it was a good pace for a solo)

I decided that as things were going well I would continue on the extended route instead of returning back home directly :-)

The tailwind pushed me up Gastard Hill and I had a nice fast ride into Melksham, I was quite pleased to pull off the main road and start heading cross country at Seend, unfortunately I was now heading uphill into a headwind :-( I was still able to hold a reasonable pace, only scrubbing a few MPH off the average, by the time I got to the top of the hill at Sandy Lane I was only down to 15.8 mph Av and it was all down hill home :-)

The Garmin had today's ride as 56.43 miles in 3 hours 31 min with an average speed of 16 mph, route here...

I was feeling a little bit down about how poor my cycling had gotten, I was starting to find almost everything a struggle, but today I had a really good ride, I can start to see some of the summer performance :-)....I have to consider its colder, the bike is heavier, the tyres are grippier, its windier, I am wearing more kit, the road conditions are worse.....oh and I may not have been giving my body time to recover...(There may be a bit of truth in the recovery time is as important as the exercise time)