I got up yesterday with the firm intention of doing my 10th fondo of October. I had my cycling clothes ready to go; my cheese and onion rolls prepacked. But the weather was so cold and damp that I decided not to bother. Consequently, there will probably never be a decuple fondo month. Not in my spreadsheet anyway.
However – I did do one today. With a light wind coming from the south-west, I decided to do my Lower Westbound route. Hadn’t done it for a while.
I forgot to take the right turn for Measham after 10km. I went down Gallows Lane on autopilot, as if doing a Twycrosser. No matter, I took a right for Measham two km further down. Unfortunately because I’d approached Measham from an unusal direction, I took the wrong turn from the crossroads and ended up going west through No Man’s Heath and Clifton Campville. But that was fine. Hadn’t been that way for a while.
I stopped just short of Abbots Bromley after 52km, and turned back. I calculated that I’d have done 100km by the time I got back by the sensible route. But I realised by the time I got to Lullington that I wouldn’t, quite. So I took a detour up to Ashby after Measham.
That was an enjoyable run out, mild enough and a nice dry day albeit rather overcast. I listened to 5 Live and the Yes live album Yessongs, once a “triple album”.
Back on 101.81k. Thoroughly decent start to the November campaign.
At the moment I’m 319km ahead of 2023. That was my record year (10,321km) but I’ll be happy with 10,000 this year. Having said that – I did formulate an ambition earlier in the year to do a minimum of 400 miles in each month of this year, which would be a first – and if I do that over the last two months of 2024, I’ll end up on 10,152km. I’ll just aim for 650k for both November and December.