I’m feeling guilty about the lack of mileage going on this month.  It’s so hard to get decent riding time in during the summer holidays.  I’ve not been on the bike since Sunday, and although the ACG are due out on Saturday I didn’t fancy the idea of a week between rides.  The only way to ride today was to ride with MaxiMe which, to be honest, did not go stormingly well.

The plan was to do my original training loop, the one I started out on back in the day.  A bit longer than he’s used to, but not much, and not with much by way of climbing to stress him out.  He’s convinced he hates hills…dunno where he gets that from! 😉  We got off to a reasonable start, albeit slower than I would be on my own.  It was grey, mild, not very windy – a bit bland but nice enough.  The plan was to see if Sweets was open on the way, have coffee if it was, and then come the direct way back.  So much for plans.  We really need to get MaxiMe’s bike set up checked over, as well as his ride position.  Not only does he keep growing, so it probably all needs changing, but he also curves his back too much and ends up with a painful back after about 45 minutes, which basically puts a stop to him enjoying the ride at all and the average speed plummets like a stone.  He needs someone other than Mummy to tell him how he ought to be sitting since let’s face it, not listening to Mummy is virtually obligatory when you’re a teenager! *grin*.

His back pain had kicked in by Mark, but by now we were on the long straight to Sweets, so it was looking like we might get through it – cake being amazingly restorative or so I’m told.  Then, as we were negotiating the construction machinery doing things to the road and bridges there, MaxiMe’s front tyre went bang.   Marvellous.  I wonder if I can sue them for leaving crap all over the road?  Yes, I can change sort a puncture, but I’m neither good at it, nor fast!  The family we’d overtaken earlier stopped to check we were ok, and suitably equipped to cope, which was nice.  Unlike the construction guys who came past all the time, and even parked next to us to play with the dumper truck we were leaned up against.  Thanks guys – nice to see that chivalry is truly dead.  MaxiMe’s tyres are really tight and a strong hand, un-encumbered by long fingernails, would have been useful!  His rims are deeper than the spare inner tube he was carrying, which we didn’t discover as early as would have been nice, so the whole process was bloody, frustrating and time consuming.  Yes – bloody.  I’m not swearing, it’s just that somehow I took the top of a knuckle off and discovered myself dripping the red stuff.  Nice.  At least once we’d finally got the darn tyre back on and the new tube inflated it stayed that way!

20 minutes or so later we were back on our way again.  However it was a little too late for checking out Sweets now, and we’d chilled down a bit too far.  With that, a sense of humour failure on my behalf, and his back still causing copious complaints we just came back the straightest way I knew.  Looks happy doesn’t he?

So it was a vaguely unsatisfying ride really.  Probably better than no ride at all, and it saved me from going to the gym for the third day in a row…but I’m proper looking forward to Saturday now!

Cycling time: 1:44:54 hrs
Distance: 25.09 miles
Avs: 14.4 mph.
ODO: 15358 miles

Apparently I’m not the only one to have been using my camera lately.  Here’s what I found when I came to download today’s pictures.  Makes a change from bikes and lycra, right? 🙂