Bit of a strange one. Nice dry day, colder than of late but still reasonably mild. I sneaked out not long after 1430 with the intention of doing some of the Lower Westbound route and coming back on 45 miles or so.
But – I was so engrossed in the audiobook I was listening to (Geddy Lee’s My Effin’ Life) that I took the turn down Gallows Lane, as if doing a Twycrosser or Bypasser, on auto-pilot. So my options for doing more than 40 miles or so were a bit limited. I did a bit of the old Dad’s Army route down as far as the A5, then went down toward Atherstone, through Ratcliffe then west to Sheepy, after which I came home via a part-reverse Twycrosser.
Home on 43.15.
Nice run out on the whole, the only really annoying thing was having to cope with copious quantities of mud in great big chunks along Sibson Road. It was fine last time I went along there a few days ago; clearly some large farm vehicles have come and done their stuff. It was so bad that my own road bike tyres were flinging off chunks of mud like tractor tyres, and the wheels were slipping. Not what you want in the dark. I stopped a couple of miles later and was pulling huge clumps of earth out of the front fork, jammed under the front brake.
More on Friday I hope, might take the afternoon off work.