I booked this afternoon as annual leave with the idea of doing a ride to Stafford Bingley Hall and back. I have two routes there, one an extension of the Upper Westbound route and the other extended from the Lower Westbound route, itself derived from the ride to Wales a while back.
I entertained the idea of doing one route there and the other one back but in the end I decided to take the Lower Westbound option both ways.
Nice warm weather and mostly sunny, though I did get a couple of spells of light rain (neither lasted more than 5 minutes).
Bingley Hall is now known as Staffordshire County Showground but I know it best as the venue where I saw a number of bands, most notably Rush of course, in my late teens. Back then it was it was a few hours from home on a train but now I live in the East Midlands, it’s a thoroughly serviceable distance for a bicycle pilgrimage.
I hung round the main gate for a minute or two and took a pic, then turned back. I thought of listening to Hemispheres on the way back since that was the current album when I saw Rush there, but remembered that I heard two new tunes from the next, unfinished album Permanent Waves for the first time those two nights. So I listened to those (The Spirit Of Radio and Free Will).
The last couple of miles to Bingley has what must be the worst climb of any bike ride I’ve ever done but the nice thing about it is that you don’t have to use the brakes on the way back down – it tapers off nicely at the bottom and eventually leads to a shallow climb that soaks up the remaining momentum. I hate to waste kinetic energy (and brake pad material).
The new surface on the A51 has bedded in nicely now, since my Wales trip.
The headwind was pretty aggravating on the way out but I think the wind had died down a bit or changed direction after I turned for home. I even had to cope with a headwind again for a time. I felt cheated.
The Scarecrow Festival at Heather is still happening so I took this pic two miles from home:
Nice afternoon out on the bike. 74.06 miles, 136 this month. That was my 18th Fondo this year.