Left work early yesterday hoping to do at least 40 or so, to take advantage of a benign weather forecast that promised no more than a couple of light rain showers late afternoon. With the wind pointing downwards, a trip out east seemed to make sense – I thought I’d do the Belvoir Castle route as far as I felt like it, then turn for home after 20 miles or so.
Cold and a bit windy, but I wrapped up warm enough. I’d decided to turn back after 22 miles, but remembered that my monthly tally stood at 249 – so I pushed on a bit, to get it over the 300 mark. I turned back eventually near Wartnaby, and put the lights on not long after that.
I thought I’d evaded the light rain showers (I refer the reader to my first paragraph). I’d had a minute of drizzle and a few spots of rain on the outward leg. Nothing unttoward. But as I neared Burton on the Wolds, heavy rain descended from a pitch black sky. I guess the ground is pretty saturated at the moment, because the roads were flowing with water in no time.
The stretch between Cotes and Stanford on Soar is well-surfaced but narrow and very quiet, with some steep-ish, curvy descents. I’d had to take my glasses off because they were spattered with rain and even with a bright front light, I couldn’t see much of the road in front of me in the blackness. What I could see was flowing with water, but it was very difficult to see how deep it was at any point. Not much fun coming down a bendy flume of water in the darkness, being pelted by rain, cold, soaked through and scared to put the brakes on in case I came a cropper (and the braking surfaces were soaking wet in any case). I unclipped my shoes, tried to maintain my balance and hoped for the best. Hellish.
I was very grateful to reach Stanford, then Normanton and Zouch where at least the roads were level and I had a bit of light now and then. Not that the rest of the ride was a lot of fun, the roads were still running with water and I had a cold wind blowing through wet clothes. I gritted my teeth, cursed the weatherman and got on with it.
Took the following pic when I reached the main road near Zouch.
I was flagged down by a motorist emerging from a parked car near Belton – my rear light had stopped working. Annoying, but I had a spare. Might have been that it was low on power; modern rechargeable LED units do just turn themselves off sometimes rather than gradually growing dimmer. This one has been brilliant, I bought it at Tesco a couple of years ago and it’s comfortably bright enough to be visible from the Moon. Possibly I should have charged it up first.
Shame there’s no easy way to tell if your rear light is actually illuminated. Maybe some sort of Heath Robinson mirror arrangement would do it but it hardly seems worth it.
I gave the bike a good wipe down and thoroughly hosed the chain / gears etc with GT85 when I got back. I’ve relubed it today.
Anyway. 52.14 miles, the last 18 or so definitely hard won. That must have been, in the end, the most character building ride I’ve ever done.
301 this month, 672 to go before I hit my 4000 target. I’m sure I can do another 100 or so this month, which will leave me needing substantially less than 300 in each of the two remaining months.