Ratcliffe

Wanted to get some more miles into my legs – my physio advised me yesterday to man up, keep increasing my distances and ride often – so I left work early with the idea of doing a 25-ish mile Twycross. I didn’t actually plan it, was fairly confident I could get it to 25 or so by busking it.

I took the Boardman. A bit cloudy and cool, but no rain. Not nearly as windy as of late, either. Set off at about 4:15pm.

I wrapped up if anything a bit too warm, with long johns underneath my tights. I also trialled a new soft balaclava / hood hybrid item that I got off Amazon cheap – that was very effective, kept my ears warm and the wind noise out of my earplugs. But I took it off at the first wee stop as I was overheating slightly.

https://www.strava.com/activities/2225130645

Kept on keeping on after Sheepy, down to Ratcliffe. Hadn’t been that far down on a Twycross for quite some time, not sure when the last time was. I suppose there must be some way to find out from Strava by scrutinising segments. Ah there is, just had a look. Unfortunately you can’t sort them by date though but I’ve had a scan through and it looks like I last did that in May 2018.

The dummy in the phone box at Ratcliffe is now wearing a Kaftan.

Right knee especially was hurting a bit over the last few miles. I think I’ve overdone it slightly by doing 58 in the last three days. But I won’t be able to do a significant distance until Friday at the earliest anyway due to other commitments, so I’ve got a bit of recovery time before my old legs have to undergo substantial pedalling duties again.

So nice to do that two mile stretch between Ratcliffe and Sibson again.

Getting dark by the time I got home. I had a decent head lamp with me but didn’t need it, the road was still just about visible by the time I got back.

I must sort out the new chain and cassette on the Boardman soon, some of the gear options are a bit juddery now. I remembered with only a few miles to go that I hadn’t actually lubed the chain after hosing it out with GT85 last time – but I reckon GT85 is a decent lube anyway if you apply it often enough.

Anyway that’s another 27.36, and 182 this month.

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