Decent weather today. Wanted to do a Fondo, and weather conditions, with the wind coming from the NE unusually, seemed to dictate a trip out East. Additionally, I thought it might be nice to do Rutland and back as a sort of sentimental Fondo homecoming, since that was the first longish ride I did in my current cycling career, back in 2016.
I chose a different route from that one though, consisting partly of the newish route over to Six Hills, and partly a brand new stretch that bypasses Melton Mowbray to the south, going through places called Great Dalby and Little Dalby but arriving at the same point of entry into Rutland along Whissendine Road.
Decent weather, cloudy but dry. A bit cool. I wrapped up warm on top but wore shorts. Hoped conditions might warm up a bit later on but they didn’t really, or not by much anyway. Would have been better off in tights. The sun came out for a bit once or twice. The wind was a bit annoying for the first half of the ride.
Anyway, a thoroughly enjoyable run out overall.
Started feeling a bit rough on the way back after about 50 miles. I didn’t feel that great when I woke up this morning; the fallout from immoderate vodka inhalation on holiday I’m afraid. I shall stay off the sauce for a couple of weeks then go back to the occasional beer now and then. So although I’d planned to stick to a pork pie and an oat bar on benches in villages, I stopped at the pub in Burton on the Wolds again and had a crusty ham baguette with fries. A 25 minute rest stop did me good.
The lady in the photograph below has just emerged from the pub to ask me if I want white or brown bread, having forgotten to do so when I ordered it.
My right knee, which is the troublesome one and the only one I bothered to have scanned, held up quite well. Unfortunately the left one was quite painful after 60 miles or so. Not the stabby, irritated pain though, more a sort of arthritic pain. I have some way to go before I’ll be able to do 100 milers again.
By coming back through Coleorton I thought I’d probably have extended the ride just enough to make it 70 miles but nope, 69.98.
Listened to my Beatles bio audiobook (handy for a long ride because the rechargeable battery in the MP3 player goes for many hours), then 5 Live on a DAB. Then when the battery in that conked out, for the last 20 miles or so, I listened to Level 42 and Badu on my phone. I have a 256G card in there with all my MP3s.
I’d uploaded the route to my eTrex yesterday because of the unfamiliar part near the Rutland end, but when I switched it on it didn’t seem to be there. Annoying. Had to rely on the phone for navigation for a few miles in the most distant part of the ride to and from the destination, but that wasn’t too arduous.
So I grabbed my Foretrex 320 for track recording and the battery on that conked out after Great Dalby, annoyingly. But I’d already started recording the track on my phone’s Strava App 10 minutes earlier, luckily – so I could follow the route I’d set up on Strava. So I ended up editing and stitching the eventual track together from the two devices.
https://www.strava.com/activities/2688596353
Nice to have a run out after nearly two weeks off. I hope I’ll be in better condition for the next long one.
2700 done this year.