Day 327 (Sunday)

Woke up reasonably early and did normal Sunday morning house chores.

At 10 am the sky was blue and it looked really nice out, although unbelievably the BBC and the met office had heavy rain, sleet and hail forecast, I decided to set straight off on a planned 60 mile ride that way I would be back at 2-3 pm and could cook tea :-)

I had decided I wanted to go back on the Bath - Bristol Cycleway but this time I wanted to turn off it and explore the Chew Magna leg of Cycle Route 10 (The Avon Cycleway). All went very much according to plan, unfortunately when I got to Bath the first Hail Storm arrived, being a martyr to the cause I soldiered on, the hail stopped and the sun came out :-)

When I got to the turn from cycle route 4 to 10 the heavens opened and I started to get wet, I pulled over and pulled on the rain jacked and water proof trousers and continued...The skys darkened and the rain fell heavier. I started to wonder if soldiering on was such a good idea? There was a massive head wind (Met office had it at 21 mph gusting to 33) I decided I would continue until I had done at least 25 miles then If things didn't brighten up I would turn around and head home.

I then went down a huge hill and the thought of re-scaling it later was not appealing so I continued and the sun came out :-)

I do not think I would have taken the Merida today if I had realised how rural the cycle way was. It wasn't of road but equally the roads were NOT well used and had a fair amount of field debris over them. (However I did survive today without a puncture :-)

I arrived at Chew Magna wet and hungry! I ate the Ham Roll and the Banana wifey had packed for me, squeezed all of the water out of my gloves (Attempting to dry them under the hand drier in the toilets at the side of the lake) , then I set straight back of home the direct route - with the wind behind me :-)

When I got to Batheaston I diverted of over Kingsdown and came home via Atworth and Gastard. At which point I think the wind really picked up (According to the met office it was 29 mph gusting to 45!)

I unfortunately did NOT take any pictures today, the camera was tucked away in my back pocket and I did not want to get it wet!

The cycle computer had today's ride as 61.3 miles in 4 hours 18 minutes with an average speed of 14.2 mph.

The RunGPS plot can be found here... I will be re-visiting this ride on the Dawes when the sun is out :-) There was enough nice scenery to make it very interesting and the lack of traffic was fantastic :-)

The unfortunate thing was after I got home and tidied myself up...I had to spend an hour tidying the Merida up!