No rain forecast for this afternoon. I had to work until 6pm, but I started early and took an extended lunch break. Decided to do a Twycrosser. I took the Boardman since I’d wrestled a near rear tyre onto it on Sunday, and wanted to run it in and test it. Not too cold. Very windy though.
A quintessential game of two halves, this one – for most of the first half I had to struggle against a powerful headwind, and despite the forecast, it rained on and off. But for the second half the sun came out and I had the wind behind me. Big relief to turn away from the oncoming wind at Sheepy Magna.
I took the picturesque route between Congerstone and Barton, and came home through Ibstock.
Interestingly, I saw another helicopter parked in the same spot in a field near Measham where I saw one a few weeks ago. I’d assumed that was an impromptu stop but I guess the landowner must rent it out as a sort of helipad. I stopped to take a pic. Definitely a different helicopter this time.
Slightly embarrassingly, just as I turned back to the bike having taken the pic, I noticed that a car had pulled up and two men in grey suits had just got; one in his mid 50s, the other in his late 30s, with a sort of physically imposing, military look about him. A close protection operative?
They smiled politely, and were climbing over the stile as I mounted the bike and rode off.
It passed overhead a few minutes later. Just Googled the registration G-EMHE and it looks like it belongs to East Midlands Helicopters:
Home on 26.07 miles. Only the third ride in March, mainly due to weather. But I’m happy to have done 192 this month, and 904 this year. This time last year, I’d done 464.