Couldn’t leave work early but set off on the X to do a Twycross just
before 6pm. The idea was to do 16 or 17, then do a U-turn and come back
the same way. I was particularly keen to reassure myself that I hadn’t
buggered my knees by doing 63 miles on Sunday.
Cool weather, intermittently sunny. Very dry. A little blowy.
I
did feel a bit of strain in the right knee after ten miles or so.
Nothing desperate, but I don’t think it has completely recovered from
Sunday. I don’t think it’s a setback per se, but will keep the distances
down to 30-odd this week. That’s all I’ll have time for anyway,
probably.
Got to Twycross and on a whim, took a right turn along
Orton Lane to take a detour that I’d pondered a few times while perusing
the Strava route planner, but had never tried before. The last part of
the detour is part of the longer alternative route to Sheepy that I
tried about a week ago. Quite quiet and pleasant, glad to have tried it.
So after turning into Fenn Lanes I decided to stop and come back. I did the required U-turn but within seconds I’d changed my mind, so I performed another one. I’d decided that it would be nice to do the road north of Bosworth at that time of night. It can be really atmospheric in the open in the last hour before sunset, especially when it’s sunny. And it was.
I cut across to Bosworth through Shenton, along Mill Lane. I hadn’t been along there for a long time. There’s a bench there, with a plaque bearing the name ‘Judith Birch’. I rested there for a few minutes.
Back home on 33.71 miles; a modest but sure start to the July campaign.
My
spreadsheet has recalculated the monthly targets to take into account
the remaining mileage to reach my target of 3000, and it requires a mere
216 miles this month. I’d weighted July a bit low to adjust for
holidays.
But I think it would probably be a bit rude not to bump the 2019 target up a bit, perhaps to 3250 miles. I’ll think about that.
Thinking ahead to a time when I’ll be able to do 70+ miles again, I had a look at my usual route to Melton Mowbray and back, with a view to changing it around a bit. I did find a really promising detour for the A6006 stretch between Zouch and Six Hills, which can be a bit of a drag sometimes.
So although I wasn’t going to go all the way to Melton today I was quite keen to try it out. I thought I’d go as far as Asfordby, then turn back – which would give me roughly the same distance I did on Friday night, a bit less than 55 miles.
I took the X again. I gave the Cannondale a bit of a clean yesterday and GT85-ed out the chain, and hadn’t lubed it. Must do that tomorrow.
Despite having got back from a gig at about 12:25AM last night, or this morning if you’re going to be pedantic – I arose at about 06:55 this morning. I actually misread the clock next to my bed. I thought it was 07:55. I’d actually made toast and coffee before I realised what I’d done there, but I stayed up, took my time over breakfast and set off at about 08:30.
Lovely and quiet at that time on a Sunday morning, barely any traffic. I actually missed the turn for the new part of the route, but only by a couple of hundred yards. When I turned back I was disappointed to find myself battling a headwind, which didn’t bode well for the return part of the journey. The new part actually adds a couple of miles to the route and a little bit of elevation as well, but it’s much nicer. Quiet, very leafy. Lots of gentle ups and downs which all add up of course, but it avoids a brutal climb just after Normanton. I did have to consult Google Maps a couple of times, though.
Rejoined the usual route at Six Hills and made my usual way from there to Asfordby. Asfordby is a dismal little town really but it does have a serviceable co-op and a thoroughly decent bench outside its parish hall. I secured the bike to some railings using my new ultra lightweight bike lock (not a lock at all really, more like a steel-reinforced plastic tie with a little two-prong tool to unfasten it) and procured a sandwich.
Suitably rested and refuelled, I started on the way back home. I think I’d done about 27.5 by this time. Sadly though, eight miles later I turned left at the Big Lane crossroads when I should have turned right. I only realised I’d done this when approaching Seagrave, a village I knew I’d never been through before. I’d just come down a long hill and I just couldn’t face climbing it again, so I plotted a new course from there, to take me back on track via Sileby and Barrow upon Soar. I was of course a bit apprehensive about this, as it meant I’d be adding three or four miles but my knees seemed to be doing really well so I pressed on.
Looking at the track now, I didn’t really take the most efficient route to get back on track. But map reading while straddling a bike using a phone in bright sunlight is not ideal.
As I approached Normanton and Zouch
it occurred to me that I probably wasn’t far off doing a Fondo – and I
might get close to the requisite distance by adding a brief excursion
over to Sutton Bonington and back from there; a decidedly flat bit of
road. So I did that.
Stopped at Belton for a rest a few miles later and did some stretching exercises.
Decided
to come back home from there through Griffydam and Peggs Green rather
than Thringstone as I didn’t fancy the climb along Talbot Street. I’d
punctured the front tyre on the same bike last time I came home that
way, which also put me off a bit.
I couldn’t remember whether a
Fondo was 62 or 63 miles, so I did a slight warm down in the immediate
vicinity of home to push the distance up a bit. Home on 63.39 (I’ve
knocked 0.02 off for clogging around the shop and walking the bike to
benches etc). I wasn’t at all proud of myself for overclocking my
intended mileage and my right knee had started to feel a bit strained.
But I doubt the ‘warm down’ or the Sutton Bonington stretch did any
significant harm. And anyway, I think I’ve got away with it.
So that’s a rather pleasing 504 miles for June, 212 more than the target and the highest monthly tally since August 2017.
1861 so far this year.
I was a bit too cool intermittently for the first half of the ride, but fine when the sun was out. I wore a long sleeved top. Got a bit of sunburn on my wrists. My leg tanlines are looking pretty good, although I compromised them yesterday by wearing rugby shorts on a lounger in the garden.
The headwind on the way back was indeed a bit of a
nuisance. But despite having got up stupidly early after a long night, I
felt pretty fresh the whole ride.
I threw out a pair of cycling
shorts last week because they’d started to wear out – they actually had a
couple of holes in them. So I wore new ones for this trip, newly
acquired from Amazon. Best ones I’ve ever had; they’re really
lightweight, the fit is perfect and they have a little zipper pocket on
the back that’s handy for a debit card, garage key or emergency tenner.
They’re a bit drab though, black with red pinstripes. The old ones had
big yellow flashes. I’m convinced that more colourful clothing and frame
paint is conducive to better morale while riding, and that’s why I like
to take the X on longer distances.
Wasn’t able to leave work as early as I wanted yesterday but it’s light until after 10pm at the moment so I wanted to do a longish one. I set off at about 5:20pm on the X.
Lovely sunny, warm weather. For some reason I couldn’t find my long-sleeved non-winter cycling jersey anywhere so I just put a short-sleeved one on and hoped it wouldn’t be too cool later. It was.
I wanted to something a bit more adventurous than the time-honoured Twycross variation. I’d originally thought of going eastward over to Grimston, a nice easy one that wouldn’t require any map-assisted navigation. But the prospect of rush hour traffic through Coalville and Thringstone put me off, and I decided to go westward instead. The plan was to do the old Wales / Stafford route for about 25 miles, then turn back the same way.
And that’s what I did, taking the nice quiet road to Appleby Magna, then over the A42 and into Warwickshire and Staffordshire through No Man’s Heath and Clifton Campville. Would be a lovely route if not for the momentum-sapping, lumpy state of the road for a few miles either side of Clifton Campville but I’d factored that in, and decided to wear it. After that there’s a really nice long, scenic flat stretch which although an A road feels decently safe and quiet. Got to Handsacre on 24.4 miles and decided to keep on for a bit since I was enjoying myself, pedalling along at a leisurely speed and listening to the women’s football on 5 Live. Stopped at Hill Ridware where I took the following pic:
Kept on keeping on for another few miles. I was convinced that I was on a road I’d never propelled myself along before, although I wasn’t particularly bothered, until I came to a pub that I recognised, called the Bull and Spectacles. I decided to turn back at that point, concerned that it would be a bit late (and dark, and cold) by the time I got back. I’d done a bit more than 27 miles.
I took a wrong turn at Alrewas, about 8 miles later. But I realised I’d done that within a few hundred yards, so I wasn’t bothered. Parked the bike against some railings next to the Trent & Mersey Canal and consulted Google Maps, before backtracking to the route proper.
It was still daylight at 10pm, albeit the sun had gone down of course.
I’d put my little LED lights on by then. Home at about 10:30pm, when it
was still quite light enough to see the road ahead and the landscape.
Although I’d been warm and comfortable for most of the ride, I was
uncomfortably cold by this time.
54.74 miles which gives me 440 this month. More tomorrow.
I’d
thought that I’d done a 52 mile ride a week or so ago and that I’d
extended my distance by about 2 miles, like I’m supposed to. But in fact
it was 50.24 miles. However my knees feel OK today and I’ve clearly got
away with it. Just a couple of months ago, 25 mile rides were hurting
them more than this.
In any case – I’m not sure that extending
ride distances by two miles a week is the best strategy at this point.
If it makes sense when you’re doing distances of about 20 miles, maybe
three or four mile increments would be better when you can do 50 miles.
And if I’m going to get back to doing 80 miles reasonably regularly as I
hope, I sort of doubt that I’ll be doing 56, 58, 60, 62 .. all the way
to 74, 76, 78, 80.
The forecast is dry for the next few days in NW Leics. The weather for a Thu-Sat-Mon pattern looked a lot more promising than Wed-Fri-Sun and today in particular was rather cloudy and cool. But of course the forecast can change, so I took my chance while it was there.
Rainy this morning and I anticipated a few puddles so I took the Boardman yet again. I’d decided to do a version of the Twycross that actually bypasses Twycross itself to the west, taking in a village called Orton on the Hill before joining the usual route just north of Sheepy Magna. This new section was variously a bit lumpy and gravelly, and really startlingly quiet. I mean post-apocalyptic. Actually slightly creepy. I might do this again but it probably won’t be a regular feature. One nice thing though was a section just near Orton where the terrain to the side of the road dips sharply, with miles of open landscape visible.
I heard the loud noise of a jet engine or engines overhead suddenly near Orton. Thought this was odd given I was at least 15 miles from East Midlands. Looked up and saw what I think was a Jet Provost; a small jet with straight wings and wingtip tanks anyway, painted grey.
Once back on the normal course I took the road that goes through Witherley as usual of late, but was halted by a flooded road.
A tributary of the river Anker, itself only about 50 feet from the road
where I stopped, passes under the road at that point. But today some of
it was passing over it, as well.
Decided I’d get my shoes rather
muddy walking round it, so I backtracked to Ratcliffe and did the Sibson
Road version instead, going down to Fenn Lanes via the A444. Because I
was getting sick of pedalling into a monstrous headwind along Fenn
Lanes, I took a left along Shenton Lane to take what is effectively a
short cut to Bosworth. Since I didn’t get my usual bench opportunity at
Sutton Cheney I stopped for a break at the bench at Bosworth instead.
Back the usual way. Quite enjoyable despite the cooler weather and blowy conditions. At least it didn’t rain.
35.94 and that’s 386 done this month. 1742 done this year so I shall aim for 1800 before the end of the month.
Checked the weather forecast at 3pm to make sure Wednesday was still
expected to be dry, only to find that today was now expected to be dry
as well – rain having been forecast for this afternoon. So I left early
and decided to do a Twycross. Thought I’d do at least 25, possibly a bit
longer.
A bit warm and muggy, intermittently cloudy and sunny
and I took the Boardman in case of rain. But not a spot of rain
descended from the skies. I did the recent version that takes in
Witherley and Atterton Lane. I thought of stopping after 22 or so and
returning the same way, but in the end I kept on and came the usual way
home. The road north of Bosworth is quite atmospheric in the evening.
Stopped at my favourite bench at Sutton Cheney for a few minutes and did some exercises.
Also trialled a new GPS watch to replace my old Forerunner 25 which I’ve given up on now; the internal battery is just too knackered and you can’t get decent rechargeable replacements. The new one is a Forerunner 35. I really like it a lot – it’s very light and unobtrusive, could easily be worn as a regular watch, and has a delightfully clear, sharp, high contrast screen that’s easily readable even in low or very bright light. It syncs up to Garmin Connect via bluetooth to your phone, and from there to Strava, automatically. Also has a 13 hour battery life (while tracking) or more than a week if just used as a timepiece.
The
only bummer is that it doesn’t show time of day alongside distance done
while riding. My Soleus does that but it’s much more of a faff to get
tracks off it. I’ve set it up to show speed, distance and stopwatch time
but I’d rather have ‘clock’ time.
Anyway that’s another 33.24 miles in the bag; a very nice run out on a warm, light evening. 350 this month.
Lovely day for it and despite being on call, I wanted to do 49 or 50. As usual I devised a rough plan that wouldn’t take me too far from home.
While investigating routes on the Strava planner I’d found a stretch just south of Derby that was remarkably flat and wanted to check it out, so I did. Went up to Swarkestone Bridge through Melbourne, turned left and followed the road along to Stenson, where I took this pic at the Bubble Inn.
Hadn’t been there since 1992, when I dated a girl called Julie. Difficult memories, but we needn’t dwell on that here.
So
from there I turned back but kept on the same road past Swarkestone
Bridge, along to Weston-on-Trent, where I stopped at a bench and
consulted Google Maps. It looked like the best route homeward was back
the way I’d come. But mindful of the need to build up the miles a bit
without venturing too far, I pedalled along the flat road over to
Stenson again, before turning back once more and going back down over
the bridge.
The flat road is quite pleasant – an A road, but not
too busy. Not my favourite sort of cycling but enjoyable enough.
Certainly well surfaced and free of climbing hills.
Took a
deviant route around Melbourne where I stopped again for a few minutes.
Then after Coleorton and back in my on call comfort zone, I did a run up
over Belton way, part of my old “Belton Figure of 8” route.
Took
a long detour over the last few miles to get the distance up to 50.
Home on 52.25 (the bike computer said 52.22, so very pleasing accuracy).
That’s the longest distance I’ve done for over 13 months.
Felt a
bit knackered after that, but I think that was possibly the heat and
the brightness. Also perhaps because the S Works has a slightly less
comfortable riding position. It’s been comfortable enough since I
flipped the stem but the bars are still a touch lower than the other
bikes and I hadn’t done more than 32 on it before. Also, I didn’t find a
suitable wee stop for the whole 50 miles.
It was a proper short
sleeves, warm day. I wore a cap rather than a helmet to keep the sun off
my eyes. Couldn’t help noticing that every other cyclist out today was
wearing a helmet, but I have to consider the number of miles I’ve done
over the last 4.5 years (17287) against the number of times my head has
collided with something heavier than an insect (0) and conclude that I’m
fairly safe.
I did enjoy that. Would have been a bit more
relaxed if I hadn’t been thinking about the possibility of my phone
going off, and if I’d had a spare inner tube. I don’t own one with a
valve long enough for the Cosmic rims. I must fix that.
I was
passed by a couple on a tandem a few miles after I set off, in
Coleorton. The rear rider had a laminated sheet pinned to her backpack
announcing that they were doing – if I remember correctly – a 190 mile
ride for a charity in a single day. Would love to know where they’d set
off from and where they were going, but they don’t feature in my Strava
FlyBys as yet.
The forecast for today was for dry weather, but as I opened the door to the Tesco lady I couldn’t help noticing, as she unloaded the Foie gras and Bollinger from the side of the van, that it was raining very heavily. Proper biblical.
But a forensic examination of the rainfall radar data later revealed that a single blob of intense rain had passed over, no more than a few miles wide. The roads were reasonably dry by the time I set off at about 16:40, and a couple of miles out of the village, there had clearly been no rain at all. Rather nice weather for a ride in fact, not blowy, mostly sunny and decently warm. I sort of wish I’d taken the Tarmac instead of the Boardman as I’ve been itching for another run out on it for a while, but I played it safe.
Wanted to do at least 40 but I also didn’t want to stray too far from home, as I was on call after 6pm. So I adopted the time-honoured strategy of going north first, then south. This time I went up to Melbourne then down through Ashby through Ticknall – a route I used to do often a year or two ago, but have been avoiding since injuring my knees due to Bastard Hill, north of Ashby. It was a strain today admittedly, but it didn’t hurt my knees.
From then I came down through Ashby and did a fairly typical Twycross.
Took a couple of pics at the bridge over the old railway line, a few miles from home.
As you can see, the tracks are long gone but their imprint on the
landscape remains. The line was closed to passenger services in 1931,
and to freight traffic 40 years later. Three miles along the track there
was a little railway station that now simply does not exist; demolished
completely for a housing estate.
Back home on 38.97 miles. 267
this month. Would love to do 48 or so on Saturday but I’ll still be on
call so I’ll have to think about that.
Oh yes, and how could I forget? Discarded female underwear sighted in the grass verge between Swepstone and Heather. White with black lace trim and polka dots.
So I saw my physio again yesterday and got my MRI results and they are pretty positive – there’s some minor aggravation, but nothing (she assures me) that should stop me from doing the 100+ milers again eventually. I just have to keep increasing my distances, and doing the exercises. Allegedly.
“I’ve seen five people with cronky knees already
today”, she told me. “And you aren’t one of them”. She also told me to
keep cycling, whatever I do. So with a view to obeying orders, since
it’s going to rain tomorrow anyway I decided to man up and go for a ride
in the rain.
Dry enough when I set off on the hybrid in wet
weather clothing including a helmet cover, and for a while I thought I’d
got away with it. Cloudy, but warm and dry. But an hour later it was
chucking down. I didn’t mind in the least though as I’d been warned and
actively expected it. Made a nice change.
I set off in the
general direction of Belton through Coleorton, but decided on a whim
that I’d see if I could find the Cloud Trail – a flat cycle route from
Worthington to Derby. I followed the signs but apparently not carefully
enough as I didn’t find it, and ended up on a road between Worthington
and Breedon that I hadn’t done before. A bit hilly. But a nice view of
the church on the cliff edge at Breedon.
From there I pedalled
off to Donington, where they were dismantling tents and clearing up
after Download. Took a left to Melbourne and back the usual way from
there. Quite a nice run out albeit a fair bit more climbing than I
intended. And the hybrid certainly feels like a lumbering heavy old
carthorse of a bike now.
Hosed it down with WD40 when I got back then gave it a wipe down with an old rag.
More
on Thursday probably. I heard this morning that a prolonged spell of
dry weather isn’t expected for weeks! But at least the next few days
look OK at the moment.
I woke from my afternoon nap to find pleasantly dry and sunny conditions
making themselves obvious through the bedroom window. So I rose,
quaffed a post-nap coffee and scrutinised the rainfall radar.
The
weather seemed to be travelling in a NW direction, with a sort of
corridor of dryness passing over NW Leics for what looked like a few
hours.
Normally I take at least a day off after a ride of any
substantial duration but the forecast looks a bit iffy still for the
next week or so. Furthermore I’d stuffed myself at a local hostelry a
couple of hours earlier, and I’d opted for a fairly gratuitously
unhealthy dessert – so I took an opportunity to do a short ride. I set
off intending to do at least 15, with the option to extend a bit if I
decided my knees were happy enough. And they were, so I did 21.83; a
medium Twycross.
Really nice out there. Blowier than yesterday
but the wind was coming from the south, so I wasn’t bothered by it on
the second half of the ride. Intermittently sunny and cloudy. Decently
warm. I did get rained on very lightly near Sheepy, but only for a few
minutes. I’d taken the Boardman anyway, just in case.
Stopped at the Gibbet post a few miles from home.
It
seems to be the time of year when you often see beetles scurrying
across the road in front of you while out on a bike. And here’s the odd
thing: they always seem to be travelling directly across the road. They
seem to take the shortest route to the other side, quite deliberately.
Can you even see the other side of the road at that distance from the
ground? Do they actually appreciate the danger on some level?
Quite a lot of corvids out and about at the moment, mostly magpies and either rooks or crows or both (I can’t tell them apart).
I
also had an opportunity to see a goldfinch up close; the poor bugger
had been squashed by a car. Actually having just had a look on the RSPB
site, it might have been a hawfinch. Had orangey plumage.
That’s
205 done this month, pleased enough with that given the weather. And I
see that I’ve passed the 1500 mile mark for the year, which means
half-way to target. 1562 done.
I wanted to do about 45 today. I did 45 last Sunday and that seemed to go OK, but I’d done a couple more than I intended. I thought of doing a run down to Stoney Stanton and a couple of miles south of there, but that one needs navigation assistance and I couldn’t be bothered transferring the track to my Garmin.
So I thought of doing Grimston and back. I gave myself a bit of a setback a few months ago by doing nearly 50 miles there and back. I’d been looking to being able to do it again.
However the more usual route there and back is only 47.5 miles and it involves less elevation than the last ride I did, so I decided today was the day.
Nice and sunny when I got up at about 08:00 but a bit cloudy by the time I set off at 09:20. Rain was threatened by 15:00ish and although I was sure I’d be back by then, I took the Boardman.
Quite an enjoyable run out mostly. Got rained on a few times, despite the forecast. The weather was very variable, ranging from a bit too cool and cloudy to warm-ish and sunny with on and off light rain. Consistently blowy, but not excessively and no bad headwinds.
The pub was still closed when I got there but I made do with a mini pork
& pickle pie on the bench at the village green, and I was happy
enough with that.
It rained particularly consistently over the
last couple of miles but not heavily. I ummed and (indeed) ahhed over
whether to repel any residual moisture from the chain with GT85 on my
return. It still has the original factory lubricant on it. I decided
that was enough to protect it and let it dry off. I did give the frame a
wipe down, and hosed the gear parts and cables with GT85.
Right knee is a little bit hurty now but I’m sure it will be OK by Monday. Nothing troubling.
Glad
to have done that one again and I’d like to think that by August I can
keep going along that route all the way to Belvoir Castle and back, like
I used to a couple of years ago.
47.51, quite a nice boost to the June distance tally which now stands at 184 miles.
