28th March 2010

Wayhay the clocks have changed....it is now officially summer :-)

I woke up at a sensible time (OK I woke up early but as the clocks have changed it turned out to be an hour later ...so I had a lie in :-)

I got changed into cycle gear and headed over to the Rugby club on the Dawes for the club leisure ride :-) I set of with the fast group at 9:30 by 11 we had done 22 miles and arrived at the tea stop, there were a few comments about the high speed....but I couldn't have been to blame I was on the Hybrid :-)

Just as we were leaving (I had a pot of tea and a bacon sarnie :-) the next group turned up...
for a complete change I thought I would follow the route in its entirety - I normally take a short-cut straight home.

The Route headed East...with quite a nice tail wind :-)

1100		9.4	°C	WSW	13	mph			30	km	1009 hPa, Falling
1200		9.9	°C	W	13	mph			30	km	1008 hPa, Falling

Then unfortunately we turned South West....straight into a rather strong head wind :-(

We kept on dropping a couple of guys of the back of the group, so we slowed up a bit, about 10 miles from home I suggested that the faster guys go on and I would go with the guys that were struggling, I made a very nice wind break on the Hybrid :-)

As the guy was going back to Grittleton we parted company and I rode the last 5 miles to the Rugby club by myself :-)

The Garmin had the ride as 52.22 miles in 3 hours 14 minutes with an average speed of 16.1 mph, route here...

When I got back home I had second lunch (A couple of Frankfurter Hot Dogs :-)

I had planned to go for a shortish ride with my son in the afternoon, with a potential pub stop to sample the last pint of Cider before the 10% tax increase....but he had made other plans :-(

As I had been granted authority by wifey for an afternoon ride and the sun was out and it's SUMMER and I wanted to get used to the Aero Bars again for Wednesday nights TT I thought I would take the Merida out for a blast :-)

Whilst doing my pre ride checks I noticed that the rear wheel bearing was very loose :-( I did a quick bodge job adjust (nipped it up a bit) then headed of out on the same route I did on Tuesday and Thursday...

What a stonking ride it was, at the 10 mile point my average speed was over 21 mph :-) The bike just felt so light and responsive after a morning on the Dawes...

At the turning point at Little Somerford I turned into a strong head wind, but I was still averaging over 20mph.

1400		11.0	°C	W	14	mph			35	km	1008 hPa, Falling
1500		11.6	°C	WSW	15	mph			40	km	1007 hPa, Falling

I couldn't hold onto the pace on the slight climbs and the average started dropping, at 20 miles the average was down to 19.9 (Bit of a shame it would have been nice to have my first 20 at 20 so early in the year!)

By the time I got back home the average was down to 19.2...Still I am quite happy, the bike was nice and I made full use of the Aero Bars...I think I may actually turn in a decent time on Wednesday.

The Garmin had the ride as 25.77 miles in 1 hour 20 with an average speed of 19.2 mph, route here...

It is quite amazing what a change of bike can make to a set course, on Tuesday with Dave the same ride in the rain with a strong SW took 1 hour 50, the same ride on the Peugeot by myself in the same conditions but working hard at it, I was down to 1 hour 30, today on the Merdia with summer tyres and riding in an Aero position it was down to 1 hour 20!

When I got back home I showered and changed the stripped down the Merida rear wheel bearings, the rear right is shot, the outer race is scored :-( - on the plus side all I have to do is replace the freehub as the bearing is part of it, but as the rim is already heavily worn I think I shall just replace the wheel set.

I cleaned up the races as best as I could, replaced the dull bearings with new ones, re-packed the bearings with fresh grease and re-assembled it, the bearing is now running free with no slack, but it will NOT last :-( So I will now be ordering a new set of wheels :-(

These things are just NOT designed to last :-(