Definitely a fondo day today. With the wind forecast to come from the west, I plotted a route last night that would combine the Upper Westbound route (up over Swarkestone Bridge, west along the Beloved A Road) with the Lower Westbound route on the way back, the two being joined by a route down through the A515 and Abbots Bromley.
I set off at 10:05. I was tempted to take the X so I could check it out following its service, but that would have been unwise for a long ride. So I rolled out the Boardman again.
A few puddles but nothing unavoidable. Unfortunately rather than going straight up to Melbourne I drifted up through Peggs Green and up Top Brand, on autopilot. I just wasn’t thinking about what I was doing. I got back on track by taking a detour through Breedon and Lount for a change, rather than Isley Walton and King’s Newton, which would be my usual method to get to Melbourne from there.
And when I arrived at the aforementioned Derbyshire town which shares its name with Australia’s second-most populous city, I realised that my misnavigation had added more than 6 miles onto my ride. I compensated for that by coming straight down to Yoxall on the southbound part of the ride, rather than all the way west and south (respectively) to Abbots Bromley and King’s Bromley. This meant that I came back through Walton and Coton rather than Alrewas, Croxall, Edingale and Lullington as I’d intended, but oh well – still a nice route.
Really a nice day out on the bike apart from an uphill slog for a mile coming down the A515. Cool in the morning, especially when the Sun disappeared behind a cloud but it was much warmer, and consistently sunny in the afternoon. I’d brought a backpack to stuff layers of clothes into, fortunately.
I judged the distance pretty well following the navigation hiccup and the compensatory short cut later on; just had to take a detour through Ibstock over the last couple of miles to finish on the fondo distance. Back on 62.56 miles. 204 done this month, target is 350 but I hope I can tack on the deficit from last month.