I wanted to do about 35 after work. Not too many, because I might do a long one on Friday and wanted to conserve my energy. A breezy day with the wind coming from the west. Relatively cool. I clothed myself with three layers on top and a pair of tights and set off to do the Lower Westbound Route for a bit. Usually I’d probably opt for the Upper Westbound, but I’ve done that a couple of times in recent days.
I got as far as the left turn along Grangewood Road after 9 miles. Grangewood Road, or as much as it as I could see from there, had been liberally garnished with dusty grey gravel. Clearly, Leicestershire County Council has bought a very large quantity of the stuff. I avoided it by declining to turn left.
I thought this would take me to Coton in the Elms, along one of the other variations of that route but nope, it didn’t. I just kept going regardless, through Overseal and eventually into the outskirts of Swadlincote. Unfamiliar territory and a bit urban, but it made a change. I saw a sign to Woodville, and made my way there. From there I went up through Ticknall to Swarkestone Bridge. Then onto the Beloved A Road. So in fact I did end up doing the Upper Westbound Route after all, or a bit of it, via a highly circuitous route.
I’d decided by this time that I was going to come back down via Weston, Aston, Shardlow, Donington et al. And I particularly wanted to stop to take a pic after 26 miles, because that would be the point at which I’d have clocked up 40,000 road miles since January 2015. I thought somewhere along Swarkestone Road near Weston might be a suitable spot for that.
That meant I needed to turn around fairly sharpish, but I didn’t. The lure of the nicely surfaced, flat A road was just too much. Seemed a waste not to do another of mile or so. So I did, and I actually passed the 26 mile mark in busy traffic before the turn off to Weston.
I ended up taking this rather indifferent pic after 40,002 road miles. Close enough.
When I got to Castle Donington I was disgusted to find that it had had the same fucking awful grey gravel resurfacing treatment. I had to propel the bike through heaps of the stuff, with cars around me throwing up clouds of dust behind them, despite obeying the 10mph signs that had been left out every few hundred metres. Clearly, there’s no escaping it at the moment. God knows how much additional wear it puts into a pair of bike tyres.
I decided to tolerate the long grisly climb through Swannington rather than face the gravel on the northern approach to the village. Swannington too had had a visit from the Gravel Fairy. But fortunately it seemed to be less recent and had bedded in a bit. I think they must come and take away the excess after a few days. Or do they just sweep it into the drains? Either way it seems a pathetic way to resurface a road.
Listened to LBC, then the tennis on 5 Live – a really superb first round match between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Dominic Thiem that went to a tiebreaker in the fifth set.
A fox cub ran across the road in front of me near Ticknall.
I stayed at home yesterday because rain was forecast. Today it wasn’t, but I did have to put up with a heavy shower. Good run out anyway.
Back on 45.17 miles.