The ride took in some notable local hills.....Broad Town and Hackpen...both of which I appeared to fly up and ended up waiting at the top for the group to re-group.
The ride down to Marlborough and the tea shop was good and fast, I was the first one there (mainly because I was busting for a leak!) I ordered my cup of tea and a bacon roll (the joys of exercise...eat what you want!)
I didn't hang about to long as I needed to get back home to go for a cycle ride!!!!
From Marlborough it was straight down the A4 and over Cherhill at the bottom I turned left to Blacklands and along to Headington and Stockley, I did stop every so often for everybody to re-group, but at this point there was only 4 of us...The rest had stayed at the coffee shop.
From Sandy Lane I bid my farewell to everybody and powered on home without slowing...
I think I may have broken my own top speed going down Old Derry Hill...48.5 mph! (I must go back to the Welsh mountains and see if I can break 50!)
The Garmin had the ride as 51.75 miles in 3 hours 2 minutes (Riding time) and an average speed of 17 mph.
The GPS track can be found here...
When I got back home I put the Merida road bike away and got the Dawes Hybrid out, and went for a cycle ride with wifey and Rosie (dog) to Lacock for lunch :-)
It was very strange riding the Hybrid after having spent so long on the Road bikes...
We poodle along at a speed slow enough for Rosie to keep up, and when she stops we stop!
When it came to the road stretches or if she gets tired we have a 'Outward Hound' back pack :-)
When we got to Lacock I took the obligatory pint of Cider and bike shot (Well I was thirsty so not quite a pint left!)
After lunch we headed back down the cycle way to Chippenham, but as the weather was so nice and we had little better to do...we stopped at 'The Old Lane' pub in Pewsham for a drink!
We we eventually made it back home, I finished baking a cake that are started making last night, made up some healthy? burgers for the evening BBQ and gave the dog a bath.
The cycle computer had the ride as 9.2 miles in 1 hour 5 minutes with an average speed of 8.4 mph.
The GPS track can be found here...
After my shower and change I gave the Merida a good clean and re-oil.
I have been looking at better ways of de-greasing the chain and cassette, I have currently been using Halfrauds chain de-greaser, but I think it would be better for the BB and wheel bearings if I took the chain and cassette off to clean it, and white spirit is an awful lot cheaper than chain de-greaser. I like the idea of the Sheldon Brown technique of putting some de-greaser in a coke/pepsi/gatorade bottle putting the chain in and shaking! :-)
I do like to keep my chain/cassette and chain-rings clean.
2 comments:
I like things to be well maintained, and my bikes are no exception. Not anal about them being clean or shiny (as anyone that's seen any of my cars will testify), but they must be maintained.
For my chain, I use the remove, place in container with white spirit and shake (or just leave it for a few minutes) technique and it works well. I then put it back on bike and lube each link.
It's this reason I use SRAM chains with powerlinks so they're easy to get on and off. So imagine how annoyed I was that SRAM 10sp powerlinks aren't reusable. And at over 2 quid each, I'm not going to keep replacing them. Will have to seek out an alternative. In the meantime I'll use the MucOff chain cleaning device, but it's more of a faff.
For the cassette, a claw brush is a must have purchase, if you've not already got one.
Ahhh Rafe, I to like things to be well maintained and in my case cleaned as well :-)
Up to now I have always cleaned the chain and cassette on the bike, but have started to think about the impact of the chain de-greaser on the jockey wheels, freewheel, BB and wheel bearings. The last time I changed the chain the Jockeys were bone dry.
I think I like the white spirit and bottle idea.
As far as chain I have always (Hmm in the last 17 months) used KMC chains, they use a missing link system that is re-usable.
I do have a cassette claw brush but because I keep it all so clean a normal paint brush is enough to clean it all :-)
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