A dry, almost warm day. I’d been waiting for the right conditions for an eastbound fondo for a while; today the wind was coming from the south-east. Close enough.
I set off not long after 0900. Would have been sooner but I didn’t bother to reattach the bottle cage to the Cannondale yesterday so I had to do that this morning. Unsurprisingly I couldn’t find my stash of the appropriate bolts in the garage. Fortunately I did find two loose ones slopping around in a drawer. I put plastic washers on this time.
Nice out there, sunny later on. I went a bit further than Eastwell, my usual eastbound fondo endpoint, this time. Hadn’t done that for a year or two. After a couple of miles I came to a right turn for a village called Eaton. Hadn’t been there before so I went and had a look. I didn’t go right into the village because the road took a brutal downward dip that I didn’t want to bother coming back up. I’ll see what, if anything, I missed on Street View later.
On the way back at the Nottingham Road junction, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to take a right turn along the main road, rather than crossing over it. I’d thought of doing this often but always talked myself out of it. After all if it was a promising or interesting route, surely I’d have noticed it while nerding out over a route planner.
I ignored the first left turn to Wymeswold, but took a left turn called Station Road after about 6 miles. I did have a sneaky look at Google Maps at this point and noticed that if I kept going I’d end up in East Leake, which is on a familiar route to Newark and Back.
I didn’t much enjoy Nottingham Road but Station Road, after the left turn, was idyllic cycling territory. Nice views, especially when I was overtaken by two curvy ladies in clingy lycra.
Sunny later in the afternoon. Lovely. I was back well before sunset and I should have done a longer ride. Perhaps I would have, except that I forgot to bring a debit card with me. Fortunately I had enough food and water to keep me going; in fact I didn’t get round to eating the cheese & onion pasty until I was about 8 miles from home.
I did think that I’d probably extend my ride quite substantially by adventuring off in the direction of Nottingham but nope, it didn’t turn out to be a longer route home. Or not much anyway.
Listened to another couple of hours of the Reacher novel and 6 Music.
Very satisfying run out, nice to explore a few miles of new territory. Back on 67.60 miles.