Very nearly ten years ago, I performed the first ride of my regular cycling habit. I wrote a brief summary on the old Counterparts messageboard, below. Fortunately it remains the only time I’ve been bitten by a dog on a cycling excursion.
So for today’s ride, I thought it might be fun to repeat the one I did ten years ago as part of a longer ride. I only did about 12km on that cold day in 2015, and I wanted to do at least 60 today. I won’t be able to cycle on Thursday due to another commitment, so I decided to make this one my tenth anniversary ride.
I can’t actually remember the route I took for the whole ride ten years ago to be honest. This was a while before I signed up to Strava, or started using GPS equipment. I could probably work it out. But I do know that I went through Swannington and along a small road called Limby Hall Lane. From Coleorton I went along a narrow lane to Farm Town. On my very occasional cycling trips before my habit kicked in in earnest, I usually went that way. I don’t now. But I did today.
Except that as I climbed the hill towards Farm Town, I felt the back wheel spin freely. Ice. I stopped and checked the road under me. Looked OK, I thought I’d passed the icy patch, but when I put my foot on the pedal to set off, no resistance. Again, the back wheel was spinning on a very slippery thin film of ice. I definitely wasn’t going to make much uphill progress on that, so I just turned back down to Coleorton. Very carefully.
From there, up to Rempstone Road, down to the Tesco roundabout at Ashby and along Corkscrew Lane to Packington, from where I basically did a Twycrosser.
I stopped at the Packington village shop to get a sandwich and a mince pie. The lady behind the counter wanted to know if I did my own bike repairs. Mostly, I told her. But she wasn’t put off. Her son has just opened a bike shop in Ashby so she gave me his card.
There’s a general flood warning in effect for Leicestershire today but I wasn’t really inconvenienced. I went down the Dad’s Army route for a bit. I couldn’t turn left along Spon Lane because it was flooded, with the fields either side transformed into temporary lakes. But that was fine. I kept on to Polesworth instead. I was met by a flood there as well, but I was about to turn back anyway.
Back home in the usual Twycrosser manner, or one of them. I dropped off some unwanted books at the public lending library at Sibson (a repurposed phone box). Been meaning to do that for a long time.
It was supposed to be a dry day, with a chance of a shower at about 1330. In reality, I had a prolonged snow shower quite early on, then a couple of hours later, sharp hailstones clattering my face in troubling quantities for about ten minutes. Really painful. But the sun was mostly out in the afternoon. Quite pleasant out there when it was.
I note that I entered Warwickshire along the road to Polesworth, so that’s two neighbouring counties ticked off (I did Nottinghamshire on Saturday).
Back on 69.96 km, can’t say it was the most enjoyable ride overall, but I’m glad to have marked my 10th anniversary with a run out.