Black and gold

Ok, so I’m a week behind schedule, but there’s little to be done about that, so let’s move on.  Today dawned sunny and bright, and a tad chilly.  There was ice on my car…which did worry me slightly, can’t imagine why.  However the forecast was for more of the same, and I figured if I left going out until 10.00am I’d probably be alright and, luckily, I was.

It was just me today.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been out on my own on the bike and I’d forgotten how nice it can be.  No-one to try and keep up with, no-one to get out of breath chatting to, no-one else to worry about.  Just me.  It’s also my favourite way to do hills which is what I had planned for today.  Yes – two hilly rides in a row – I know.  Aren’t I a good girl? 😉

First off – Shipham Hill.  Which is a good way to warm up.  From my door to the top of the hill (before the café) took 17:45 which I guess is a good place to benchmark to see if I get better as the season progresses.  I plodded my way up fairly comfortably, which was nice.  From there I went down into Shipham, down to Churchill, wiggled briefly and then went up Burrington Coombe.  Which took quite a long time, as it does.  It wasn’t as busy as sometimes, though the size of some of the lorries that go up there still defies belief.  Again, more plodding.  For the aforementioned quite a long time.  Which is what I need to be doing for training purposes, so that’s ok.  Once finally there, it was gorgeous on top of the Mendips – winter sunshine, roads that were verging on dry from time to time, stunning views, peace and quiet (ish).  I even had to shout at a pheasant to get it out of the road.  Well – I was going quite fast and didn’t want to brake *grin*.

From the top I went along the long straight but not flat road where some eejot in a black 4×4 coming the other way simply had to overtake something impeding his progress towards a no doubt vitally important engagement…and cut it extremely fine getting back into his own lane.  I’m afraid I made an impolite hand gesture in his direction…  If I was feeling charitable, I could suggest that I was probably going faster than he’s used to thinking that cyclists go, so he may have genuinely misjudged it.  On the other hand, maybe he’s just a prize prat…  And prat really isn’t the word I wanted to use there.

So on to join the Old Bristol Road at the Ploughboy Inn.  Which made me think of the Pillsbury Doughboy for some reason.  This is the kind of thing the brain does as it’s waiting for the traffic lights to change…  Then on to plod up the final stretch to the aerial before doing my best to enjoy the long downhill into Wells.  I tried.  And I held off the brakes more than sometimes, and more than I would have done on Sunday.  So it was a relatively good downhill.  Mind you it wasn’t half cold going downhill for so long…  So I still prefer uphills…kinda.  It’s all relative.  Talking of which, I called my other, and some would say better, half from outside his office in Wookey and summoned both him and coffee to join me in the sunshine for a bit, which was nice.  And which also warmed me up a bit 🙂

Thus caffeine-fuelled I went fairly directly home, albeit via Wedmore.  The road surface at the Wells end of that road is atrocious – I must remember to avoid it.  You end up feeling like you’ve been pneumatic drilling.  Still other than that the road was oddly nice and quiet, the traffic clearly having other places to be, and I pootled my way home in the sunshine.

It was a nice uneventful sunny ride.  I did hills.  I did miles.  My knee was pretty  much ok for a change.  Upon my return I drank Recovery (reserved for long or hilly rides).  I even washed my bike.  Look at me go! 🙂

Cycling time: 2:31:36
Distance: 35.6 miles
Avs: 13.8 mph
ODO: 6774 miles