Looked dry enough out this morning. Togged myself up in my cold weather cycling gear, prepared a pod with an oat bar and pork pie, water bottle, DAB radio – then I looked out of the window again and it was raining.
Decided against it and put my shorts and t shirt back on. An hour later though it had stopped and the weather forecast told me I had a decent chance of acceptable weather over a few hours, so I put my cycling togs back on and withdrew the Boardman again. The roads were a bit wet and it was cold. It was fairly windy. But the sun was shining and the rain clouds had given way to blue skies.
Wasn’t sure where I wanted to go so I defaulted to a Twycross. Thought I’d do about 40 miles or so. Too cold for anything much longer, although I had good lights on me in case I did stay out longer than I’d intended.
Took a right turn not long after Snarestone, to do the longer Orton extension – however I took a wrong turn at Norton. Arrived at the A444 expecting to be at a crossroads, but found myself at a T junction. So I followed the A444 down to Twycross. Hadn’t been on that stretch of the A444 before I don’t think, but it was fine. Not too busy.
Did the shorter Orton detour to Sheepy from Twycross.
From there I went to Ratcliffe hoping to do Atterton Lane via Mythe Lane, but as I half expected, Mythe Lane was flooded. I tracked back and carried on the old-fashioned way through Ratcliffe Culey then down to Fenn Lanes where I picked up a nice tailwind. Would have taken a pic of the flood but realised that my phone had a flat battery when I tried to power it up.
Pretty much the standard way home from there, up through Bosworth, Barton, Odstone, Heather.
I checked my watch near Bosworth to find that I’d done about 33 miles and would likely be home on less than 40 miles, which was a bit disappointing. But then I remembered that I hadn’t switched “Ultratrac” mode off since last time I used it, so had probably done a couple more than that.
My left cleat failed to engage properly with the pedal over the whole ride, annoyingly. It was comfortable enough but it wouldn’t stay locked in. Will replace it tomorrow; it’s worn down.
The watch claimed 37.33 miles as I arrived home. Strava’s distance correction modified that to 40.69, but it was actually 41.59.
Listened to footy on 5 Live for most of the ride. Can’t see anyone catching Liverpool now.
So: 159 in December, happy enough with that for half-way through the month. There’s still lots of rain in the forecast for the next week or two though.
https://www.strava.com/activities/2932604447
I wonder if I should buy a second winter bike. The Boardman is running fine at the moment but it’s something of a Winter Bike Single Point of Failure, not counting the hybrid which is a bit of a last resort. It’s also done more than twice as many miles as any of my other bikes this year.