A dry day again, unseasonally mild. But a strong wind, coming from the south. I thought I’d do the southbound route for 20 miles, then come back. I was determined to do 40 this time.
The headwind was a bastard, but as I always say – I choose to do these things, not because they are easy. But because I’m hard.
After Stoney Stanton, instead of going straight over at the road junction to Broughton Astley, I thought I’d go left instead and explore for a bit. I only had another mile or so to do before turning back. However shortly afterwards I saw a left turn to Croft, so I took that. I thought it would be fun to try and navigate my way back from unfamiliar territory. Nothing stirs the blood quite like being lost 20-odd miles from home when it’s getting dark.
Not long after this though, I saw a sign to Potters Marston so I was soon back on track. I assumed my little adventure would add a bit to the overall distance, but in fact it was a shorter route back to Potters than if I’d just done a U turn on 20 miles.
Inexplicably I missed the Kirkby Lane turn on the way back – well I suppose it’s easy to get disoriented in the dark, and somehow this also turned out to be a short cut, through Newbold Verdon.
Back on 40.31 miles, but I had to faff around a bit up Heather Lane at the end to get it up over 40.
Noticed an interesting wrinkle with my Garmin watch – I forgot to resume the track after a stop at a farm gate. But when I resumed the track I assumed the displayed ride distance would include the distance between the two points when I stopped, and started the watch. But it didn’t. I only became aware of this because I was on the Tricross, which is now my only bike with a magnet-driven bike computer. After resuming the track there was a large discrepancy between it and the watch. And when I uploaded the track to Strava, the stopped distance didn’t get included either – until I used the “correct distance” function which noticed the anomaly and fixed it.
I wrapped up in several layers thinking that the temperature would drop after sunset, but it didn’t seem to and I was slightly over-warm for the whole ride.
I’d run out of cheese pasties and pork pies to use as cycling fuel so I made some sandwiches to take in a backpack. It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention, and while I can’t claim to have invented the egg & tomato sandwich, it was a very welcome innovation to my cycling habit. Will do that again for sure.
All in all a very satisfying run out. I especially enjoyed the tailwind on the way back.
329 miles this month. I’d love to get in another 40 or 50 but the weather looks iffy for the rest of the month.