Spent a happy hour or two on a cruise ship returning from Belgium last night, downing vodka martinis. Drove up from Southampton Docks this morning. Not the best preparation for a cycle ride and I didn’t really feel like it, but I thought I should since I hadn’t ridden a bike since Monday. So I withdrew the X from the garage at about 2:34pm, and set off intending to do about 26.
As usual I hadn’t actually planned a route but estimated that a Sheepy / Ratcliffe / Sibson / Carlton variant of the Twycross would be close enough, and so it proved. 26.41 miles.
The weather was lovely for the first hour, then the wind picked up suddenly, a gloomy haze descended and the temperature dropped sharply. Felt a spot or two of rain over the last half mile, and when I emerged from the garage again having returned the bike to its usual berth, it was raining properly. Good timing.
Happened upon two pheasants at the side of the road near Heather, and they responded to my arrival by flying into my path. Had to swerve to avoid the first one. Not like the duck I saw the other week that calmly stepped out of the way to allow a Land Rover to pass, then stepped back into the road.
Anyway that’s 56 done this month, 718 this year.