I booked today off work on Friday, after seeing a favourable weather forecast. In fact the forecast changed over the weekend with a likelihood of showers in the afternoon, but I intended to go south where I’d most likely avoid them.
The idea was to do either a fondo or a 100 miler, depending on the time I got up. And I got up at about 0715, so 100 miles it was! I thought I’d go down to Northampton and back. I set off at about 0805.
I had a change of plan after 36 miles and took a left to Naseby. I’ve been to Northampton a couple of times in recent months so I thought I’d give it a miss and do something different.
I’d been to Naseby before but this time I kept going, through places called Haselbech and Maidwell. About half a mile after Maidwell I found myself at the top of a long steep descent that I didn’t fancy coming back up, so I turned back. I’d only done 43 miles so I’d have to improvise a bit on the way back. I did. I took a turn to a place called Cold Ashby and just followed my nose. Really, really nice cycling territory over the next ten miles or so through places called Stanford on Avon and Swinford. I rejoined the usual route at North Kilworth (after a bit of reassurance from Google Maps), but still needed to make up some distance. I went exploring again, through Ashby Parva and Frolesworth – basically a detour around Broughton Astley.
I was still a couple of miles short though (having distance landmarks memorised is handy for gauging this) so after Kirkby Mallory, I kept on to Cadeby, then Bosworth then back the usual way from there, or one of them. Made up the last bit of distance by coming back a long way through the village.
Terrific day out on the bike. Had two very pleasant stops at the village shop at Gilmorton. Nice weather, no showers. Very mild. And I listened to another few hours of the Reacher novel.
Back on 100.42 miles and that’s a pleasing 479 done this month. Would have got the total over 400 even if I hadn’t taken the day off, which is nice to know.
1850 done this year and 45,011 since January 2015.