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Sunday, February 14, 2010

14th February 2010

Got up early, had some breakfast cereal then headed down to the Bath Road car park for the cycle club closed 75k Audax, I wasn't to sure on how it would go - my legs were still aching a bit from yesterday's excursion.

At least the forecast snow hadn't arrived and it wasn't freezing.
0800 Mist 1.1 °C NNW 6 mph
4.8 km 1019 hPa, Falling
0900 Mist 1.7 °C NNW 6 mph
6 km 1019 hPa, Falling
1000 Medium-level Cloud 2.5 °C N 8 mph
8 km 1018 hPa, Falling
1100 Medium-level Cloud 3.6 °C N 10 mph
12 km 1018 hPa, Falling
1200 Medium-level Cloud 4.4 °C NNW 10 mph
20 km 1018 hPa, Falling
Never wanting to be late for anything I set of from home at 8:30 for the 8:45 start, but it only takes about 2 minutes for me to get there!!!

I arrived, signed in then stood around for half an hour getting cold :-(

When we all kicked off at 9 am I was very restrained, I didn't shoot of like a bat out of hell, but sat sensibly behind Graham and Eric :-)

Unfortunately Eric didn't want to be at the front so he waved me by, I was then at the front :-(

To my great surprise I remained at the front going up Studley Hill, in fact I stayed in front going up Devizes Road into Sandy Lane, I had now warmed up and was flying along!

I broke the speed limit going through Sandy Lane , 31 mph in the 30 :-)

As we were heading towards Stockley the Garmin track had us turning left earlier than I had expected, I ended up going straight on, with everybody following. It was quite comical as I slowly slowed down (Warning everybody else of course) and turned around :-)

As we passed through Stockley I really started to get into a good rhythm, I thought everybody was with me....Unfortunately I appeared to have dropped them ALL!

I took the opportunity to pull over and take a photo or two :-)

It also meant I didn't look like a complete twat by racing of into the distance :-)

I managed to catch them all up quite quickly and overtook them again going up another hill, David held everybody up a little so I could take another picture or two :-)


Again I managed to catch up and slot myself in the front of the group, a lot of them didn't have mudguards on and I didn't fancy getting covered in road garbage, I was also in a good rhythm :-)

It was a quick dash through Devizes to Potterne, then cross country to Coulston before joining the B3098 to the Control at 'The Stables Tea Room' at Bratton.

A group photy was taken outside the Tea Room, it was suggested that we looked like the Village People, so I attempted to look like a village idiot....

We moved to the bikes for a more cyclist group photy...

Most of the guys opted to stop for tea, it was a tadge cold out for me to want to stop, David and a couple of others also wanted to press on, so we set off :-)

It was a bit more hard work as it was a head wind but only 10mph, so not as bad as yesterday.

The route from Bratton was one that I have done a fair few times, Bratton -> Steeple Ashton -> Hilperton -> Holt -> Atworth
Then up one of the most annoying little hills through Neston.

We stopped at the top as one of the guys was having gear issues, and I took another photy

It was then downhill to Corsham and Chippenham to the finish as Sainsburys

I then plodded on home at the same highish speed that I had done everything else at :-)

It was a stonking ride and I felt really good for ALL of it :-)

The Garmin had the ride as 49.1 miles in 3 hours 3 minutes with an average speed of 16mph, route here...

When I got back home I showered and warmed up a bit then had left over Bolognese that I cooked for tea last night, and some freshly cooked pasta :-)

Then I set about cleaning the rather dirty bike!


The sun came out as I was cleaning it and it was lovely and warm, I also managed to clean it in a rather quick time (for me)

4 comments:

Rafe said...

Your club rides sound great. You're very lucky to have such a good local group.

Judith said...

Seeing you all in your winter woolies, reminds me that the colder weather will be here before we know it.....I can still get away with jersey and shorts at 6 am, but today it is pouring rain......so I stayed in bed....smart rider

KatieCake said...

Tut tut! Breaking the speed limit! ;-)

Sounds like a fun ride. There was just one thing missing.... a cake stop! ;-)

John Berry said...

@Rafe..Considering I am so anti-social I find it amazing that I enjoy the club ride :-).....It is nice sometimes NOT to have to plan my own rides

@Buttsy...I am SOOOOOOOO looking forwards to the long sunny days again....but riding in the rain can be a nice refreshing experience.

@KatieCake...Its always my aim to break the speed limit on that stretch of road :-) There was a cake stop...but I really didn't relish the idea of stopping and cooling down...BTW I really like teh look of your new bike :-)

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