Looked at the weather forecast for today and thought – Wales and Back! Then I remembered that I had to be home by 1830. So – I thought I’d do the same route, but only as far as the Cheshire border. The one modification I made was to avoid the turn off to Audlem over the last km – because you get to the border a bit quicker if you keep going.
Intended to start at 0700 but I got up earlier than I expected and set off at about 0620. A bit too cool for comfort for the first couple of hours but I didn’t want to take too much clothing with me. Was going to be warm later on.
The outbound leg was a bit stressful, with rush hour traffic around Rugeley. For some reason I found myself on a temporary one way system on the Rugeley bypass. Busy traffic as well. But further on, the nearside lane of the A51 was coned off for about 5km. They hadn’t started the road works so I used it as a sort of private cycle lane. Handy.
Got to the Cheshire border, only a few km after hitting Shropshire. Went over it for a bit, turned round, came back. Conditions were much warmer by this time and I’d backpacked my fleece and tights.
Came through the centre of Stone rather than using the bypass, as I had going westward. Stopped at a bench and ate while listening to Starmer and Badenoch going at it in the Commons. Fight! For the record, she had him on toast.
I wanted to avoid the Rugeley bypass on the way back as I had no idea what sort of diversion might be in place to circumvent the temporary one way system. So I confected a detour along much quieter (if rougher) roads to the north. Stopped at the petrol station at Colwich and bought a black pudding roll, to honour my northern roots. The guy behind the counter used to work for Specialized (he’d noticed the Roubaix parked outside) and we had a chat about bikes for a bit. He was banging about Mark Cavendish and competitive cycling so I nodded amiably and pretended to know what he was on about.
The wind was very light. If the forecast had been right I’d have had a tailwind on the way out, and a tailwind for the second half of the return trip as well, but that didn’t happen. I enjoyed the second half a lot more than the first though. Quieter, and (much) warmer.
Apart from 5 Live I listened to a few hours of the Reacher novel. Back on 182.40km. That was a breeze really, even the brutal hill after Stone wasn’t too much of an ordeal. I think I’m at a relatively high level of fitness at the moment, presumably because I’ve cycled more than usual this last few weeks. 988km done this month now – wonder if I could get that up to 1302, to beat my monthly record? The weather’s not that promising nearer the end of the month.