Time to get back on the bike. Having had a good gym session yesterday, I knew my legs were still working, but I didn’t know if my bike and I were still talking to each other. So I went for what probably counts as a recovery ride with George, in the grey and mild. It was also dry until I made the mistake of noticing it was dry and commenting on that fact, at which point it stopped being dry and started being drizzly and wet instead.
George had errands to run in Burnham, so that’s where we went. I forgot my camera, but I didn’t regret that, as there was nothing out there of great note to share with you. We looped there, we looped back. George peeled off home before I went down Weare Hill – wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee……. – and I added an extra loop to take in Winscombe Hill and make sure I was out for two hours. Got to do at least one hill, right? So my route went something like this.
Cycling time: 2:03:27 hrs
Distance: 32.57 miles
Avs: 15.8 mph.
ODO: 13568 miles
My legs were feeling ok, the bike could use a clean and some oil here and there but was indeed still talking to me, and it was a fairly enjoyable uneventful ride. We’re ready to do a lot more miles and a lot more hills together :). Just as well considering the Tour of Pembrokeshire is on Saturday – 100 miles and 2400 metres of climbing! *gulp*.
So let’s talk about other things instead. Like how I’d quite like to marry the man who invented the zip. His name is Gideon Sundback, and the day after I was last having such thoughts, the google doodle of the day honoured him too, in oddly coincidental fashion.
The zip is amazing. The zip is what makes layers even better and even more flexible. Unzip up the hills, zip up to descend. Or up and down as weather conditions and temperatures dictate. However, considering that Mr Sundback is no longer around for me to marry, I’d quite like to marry whoever it was at Rapha who decided to include two zipped vents in their winter jerseys to allow ventilation when you need it, and shut it off when you don’t. It’s also a zip that makes my saddle bag expandable when I need to stuff my unwanted layers into it halfway through a ride. Lets face it – zips rock!
Moving on… Cyclists get strange tan marks. There are apparently rules as to how razor sharp and where tan lines should be. I break rule 7 all the time, but then I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a girl, and I think we feel differently about tan lines than the male of the species. And, as part of my mental meanderings, I am contemplating a new method of spray tan delivery. Not that I’ve ever had a spray tan in my life, nor am I likely to, but I gather that essentially you stand in a booth somewhere, and the tan is sprayed all over you. A bit like this:
or like this. It’s important to cater for everyone’s tastes, right?
Now this seems pretty daft to me. The back roads around Winscombe have however inspired me to invent a cyclist friendly method of bronzer delivery. Well two actually. However the most easy to implement, and therefore my patented method of choice is as follows. May I suggest a large long shallow puddle of the stuff? All the unhappily pallid cyclist has to do is cycle gently back and forwards through the puddle, at a constant speed, as many times as necessary to achieve the depth of shade required. Obviously this probably works best for the legs, and upper body coverage may well be more variable and less satisfactory, but hey, this is a work in progress, and early days etc. What do you think? Off to the patent office with me?
Now if you could get the stuff atmospheric (stratospheric?) somehow, like today’s drizzle, then I think we’d have the all over tan issue sorted, since as we’re all familiar with that particular type of fine drizzle that effortlessly coats everything that cycles through it. However that one’s a bit beyond my less than scientific brain…but if you manage to work that one out for yourself I’d like you to know that I thought of it first and want 50% of any profits made, as well as your first born child. Actually no, scratch that, my two are quite enough! 😉