Fancied a good old-fashioned Twycrosser today, so that’s what I did. I took the X. The weather forecast threatened a hot day so I went early to minimise my exposure to the worst of it. Made sure my cleat bolts were nice and tight, and left at about 10:30.
I didn’t want to push my luck with a longer ride, and it was too hot anyway. On top of that I was woken last night by a bat doing laps of our bedroom ceiling at 3AM and a bit tired. It left of its own accord (unless it’s still hiding in there) a few minutes later but not before freaking me out slightly.
Took the detour to Orton between Twycross and Sheepy.
Rather than listening to 5 Live on a DAB radio, I opted to test a small MP3 player I’d bought a few years ago, but hadn’t used for ages. I thought the internal battery might be stuffed. This turned out to be a bit inconvenient as it was very difficult to navigate to the tunes I wanted – it doesn’t have a screen so you pretty much just have to scroll through everything. I ended up listening to a load of Robert Plant solo stuff I’d put on there years ago and while there are a few gems, I must admit that overall I was getting sick of Robert’s 1950s rock’n’roll schtick with the slapback echo on the vocals.
The MP3 player did great though, the battery lasted the whole ride and was still going strong when I switched it off half an hour after I got back. It weighs almost nothing so would be useful for extending DAB life on a long ride, or as a backup.
Baking hot by 1pm or so, and I was wearing long sleeves to protect my already-sunburned arms. Took this pic three miles from home at a farm near Heather.
Very happy to report that my knees did fine, despite doing ~64 miles on Friday.
https://www.strava.com/activities/2650173833
34.33 miles, 419 this month.