I was going to do a fondo today, so I was a little dismayed to find this morning that the forecast had changed to threaten rain in the afternoon. But I decided I’d just suck it up.
It was cold. I had to put a few layers on.
The wind was coming from the north-west so I decided on the Upper Westbound route – up through Coleorton, over Swarkestone Bridge and west along the A road. I’d done 24 miles when I hit a snag, in the form of a flood along Leathersley Lane. Judging by the road vehicles that were ploughing through it, it was at least seven inches deep and the complete width of the road. So – I turned back.
When I came to the main road again (Uttoxeter Road) I turned left to go west, in the hope that I’d be able to loop round the flood from the north. But I ended up in the same place, right in front of it again. When I got to Uttoxter Road again I turned westward again, but this time went as far as Foston, then turned back. Foston is a bit of a dead end unless you want to go on the A50. So I turned for home.
I only had a few miles to make up by this time. I did a brief excursion to Etwall, and a detour into Coalville on the way back. I stopped for a sausage roll and a Fry’s Chocolate Cream at the petrol station near Hatton.
I listened to a range of opinions on the Israel / Palestine conflict on LBC, some more of the Reacher novel (Gone Tomorrow) and the Kiss album Love Gun.
The threatened rain didn’t materialise until a minute after I’d put the bike back in the garage. Nice timing. Actually it was mostly sunny in the afternoon.
As an experiment I used the phone to track the ride. Even after more than 60 miles of tracking and a couple of hours of audiobook playback, I still had 75% battery power when I got back. I used my old Soleus GPS watch as a sort of simple mileometer. It will track rides of course but you need a Windows PC to get the data off it, which I can’t be bothered with. Its other annoying foible is that it exaggerates distances – it was claiming more than 60 miles done when I’d only just done 59 according to the phone.
Back on 62.79.