Still, riding the bike is frequently medicinal, and I’m perfectly capable of going up hills these days right?  So I buttoned it.  I did not protest too much, and I prepared myself to follow along in George’s wake.  We set off in the nippier than it ought to be air, around Nyland, and then some gratuitous wiggling to take us to ascend Westbury Hill, because apparently today’s ride was about taking the scenic route…  It’s a long slog of a hill, but we still managed to chat most of the way up, so it can’t have been that bad, right?  I wonder if the shoes do make a difference, or whether I just think they do?  I’m not sure the placebo effect applies to footwear *grin*.  Actually, bearing in mind how much I love shoes, do my many and various pairs of killer heels make me look better or just feel better, and does it matter which?  Discuss…

This picture did the rounds a while ago…maybe I could combine two of my passions and have these?

Enough with the shoe fetish stuff (wonder how many hits I’ll get now I typed that in? ).  Once we’d slogged our way up to the top, we discovered that that’s where the wind was (surprise, surprise), in more than ample very chilly quantities.  It’s May, right?  Well it felt a lot like October to me…  It was a relief, and a pleasure, to take the long descent off the Mendips to Chewton Mendip.  I do love descending .  Echoes of the Mario Cipollini Gran Fondo, as we went past Lynda’s loaf and the curb stone with his name on it .  I really must pop in there properly some time and try some of their gluten free (hopefully safe) stuff.

Look, a new sign for you!  Well, I was running short of things to take photos of…which is presumably why I’ve victimised George again

The stretch along to East Harptree was much more pleasant, and fairly fast, which mean that all too soon we were turning left to go uphill again.  A scenic hill presumably.  I quite like this climb, in an odd way.  It seems nicer than the other climbs up along here – it’s mostly less wiggly, longer, much quieter from a traffic perpsective.  George told me she’d meet me at the top, which met with my usual snort of derision…but actually, just for once, that’s how it actually worked out!  My getting on with it turned out to be faster than her getting on with it, and I waited for her at the end of the road.

It was quite tempting to take refuge inside though…but the sign wouldn’t point me in that direction

It’s a sign that’s clearly seen better days…  We came home via Charterhouse and Tynings Farm, and my favourite descent…  Where I ended up having far more fun than I ought to have.  Three quarters of the way down the hill the quarry lorry that was ahead of me ended up not far enough ahead of me at all, and meant me having to slow down and follow it.  Way to ruin a perfect down .  So when we got around the corner to the straight bit and there was nothing coming the other way?… I put my foot down, pushed through my new shoes, and overtook him with, if I say so myself, quite some style *grin*.  What a buzz!  As I flew past and pulled back on to the right side of the road in front of him, he tooted at me in appreciative fashion, and when he finally caught me after I’d kicked away from the junction and was on my down the bypass he did the same again.  And it was definitely a friendly toot not an angry blast.  I had a massive smile on my face as I cruised into town .

Cycling time: 2:28:04 hrs
Distance: 35.48 miles
Avs: 14.4 mph.
ODO: 13758 miles

I’m doing the Black Rat on Sunday, and the plan was to do the 100km route, not the 100 mile.  Now that I’ve done hills today, I may well stick to that…but I guess we’ll see.  I really should as it was supposed to be a rest weekend!  It’ll depend on the weather on the day and how I’m feeling when I get to the top of Burrington Combe, having already climbed that and Failand Hill and Goblin Combe.  I don’t have to do 100 miles every weekend you know .

Cycling time: 1:46:56 hrs
Distance: 28.21 miles
Avs: 15.8 mph.
ODO: 13722 miles

So, anyone want to know how the eating is going?  Well generally I think it’s working.  Or helping anyway.  I’m not living on paracetamol, which has to be a good thing.  As for the riding – having made an effort to have a better eating strategy before and during the last event, I think I got through it better.  OK, I still nearly lost it, but that’s the point.  Nearly.  I saw it coming, ate the jelly beans, and dealt with it.  I did eat more during the event – though clearly still not quite enough – and I ate at regular intervals whether I wanted to or not.  I had one of another kind of safe bar – irritatingly I’ve forgotten which one – which wasn’t just fruit and nuts and had oats etc in it too, and I think that helped, in combination with the Nakd bars, bananas, and Nuun.  The plan in the long run is to start making my own bars, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.  No excuses – procrastination is a terrible thing…

This Sunday my youngest celebrated her 12th birthday.  The first thing we did when I got back from Pembrokeshire was to make her birthday cake together.  We made a speckled chocolate beetroot cake, from my new cookbook.  All gluten free, wheat free, dairy free…sounds good right?  And it was.  Tasted bl**dy lovely, went down a treat all ’round.  Shame that it turns out beetroot is on the banned list isn’t it?  Doh!  Didn’t even occur to me to check…*sigh*.  And that keeps happening…

So I think it’s safe to say I’m still getting it wrong from time to time but, slowly, I may be getting there…  Live and learn, right?

Oriel y Parc

queue for the start

After a brief welcome from Valero, the main event sponsors, and also the organisers, we were underway at 8:00am on the dot, with our timing lanyards scanned as we passed under the start banner.  Interesting that I’d never done the lanyard thing until last week and now I’ve done two events in a row using that timing method.  Same timing company actually.  And in case you were wondering, dangling timing chips still irritate me .  Right then.  Off we go again, through the quiet streets of St Davids and out into the even quieter countryside.  The first half an hour was pretty flat which, if I hadn’t done the prologue ride last year, could easily lull you into a false sense of security.   It does mean you get chance to warm up your legs a bit, which is both nice and ,as it turns out, essential, because the route then drops down to the coast at Trefin, kicks up out of it again in a steep wiggle, and voilà, your climbing has begun.  Or, to be more precise, your climbing has only just begun.  The route was advertised as being 104 miles and c.2400 metres of climbing – so this was never going to be a flat ride.   Take that, and my previous experience, and forewarned is most definitely forearmed.  West Wales is lumpy!  Apparently I shouldn’t understate it like that either .  Having wiped out last weekend, and being as I was doing this ride on my own, I had already decided to approach it as a long day out in the saddle in the sun and not to push it, so I settled down to enjoy the scenery.

that's a lighthouse in the distance...

Two riders by the coast

Look at that sky!  The sea was the kind of blue that, if my youngest painted it that way, I’d probably tell her off for being unrealistic  Just gorgeous…  About 15 miles in there was a timed hillclimb but since that involved a) stopping to be scanned at the bottom before going up and b) considering yourself to be competitive at any level, I gave that a miss.  The lady scanning at the top was warning everyone about the dangerous descent to follow, and she wasn’t wrong.  It was steep, wiggly, gravelly, and involved farms.  Just as well it was dry, and that I’d done it before.  I gather a couple of riders came a cropper going down there – less cautious souls than me I imagine.  Very shortly I’m going to lose track of which climb was which, because for most of this ride if you weren’t going down you were going up, and if you were going down, you almost didn’t want to be doing so for too long because you knew that payback would be just around the corner!  So bear with me if I get them a little muddled.

The first of five – yes five – foodstops was in a pub carpark in Fishguard, about 24 miles in.  Refreshments on the outside, facilities within – perfect.  I don’t ask for much really.  Half a banana ingested, one gilet stuffed in the saddle bag, time to go again, with many miles left to ride.

first food stop in Fishguard

One of the many nice things about this ride was the route card given to all riders:

route card before...

Every hill, every food stop, all marked out so you knew what was coming.  I checked it at each food stop, and thus knew that there were three big lumps between me and the next food stop.  It’s all part of making the ride mentally doable.  Counting the miles until the next food stop, the minutes until I next have to eat, calculating how far through I am – quarter, third, half, over half and on the way home.  Breaking it down into manageable chunks and avoiding looking at the bigger picture at all costs *grin*.

Talking of pictures…

That’s scenery that is.  And there was a lot of it.  Not easy to capture on my little camera, but I’ve tried.  Wales is not just lumpy, it’s big!  Time to go up in the world again…

That would be the view behind me – I’m practising taking those.  The less post production straightening I have to do the better!  It’s a bit of a challenge though…

And that would be the climb stretching off into the distance.  Time for some serious plodding.  Zips undone.  On and on and on…in pretty relentless fashion, but the views at the top were awesome.  And look at those cute fluffy clouds?  Not pink, but lovely nonetheless .

I’d been here before on the preview ride, but very shortly that route and mine parted company, and I was off piste…off into unfamiliar territory.  Fear of the unknown?Still, you know what I’ve earnt now?  A bl**dy good descent – and I got one – wiggly windy and all the way to Newport, which we only really grazed.  No, not THAT Newport – this one.  Far more attractive.  Can you see the down coming…?

about to descend to Newport

So, as you can see, the sun is shining,  There wasn’t supposed to be much wind, but there certainly seemed to be enough cold air moving around.   And by around I mean usually being in my face.  Maybe it wasn’t wind, maybe it was coastal breezes, but whatever it was, they clearly get a lot of it up there!

It stayed on the nippy side all day really – just the right side to cool you down after the massive hills though.  Hills and headwinds – insult and injury .  I chatted to a fellow rider, also on his own, for a while at some point.  He was from Bridgend and this was his first sportive.  I had to point out that he’d picked a pretty impressive ride for his first one, but it was early days yet, and I’m not sure he believed me…  Slogging up yet another hill, into yet more wind, could be enough to get you a little depressed, but then you go down a bit, around a corner, and this is waiting for you:

Does it get much better than that?  Just gorgeous.  I know I’ve been known to joke about metaphorically stopping to enjoy the scenery, as an excuse to take a break, but really in this case it was the view I stopped for.  Outstanding.  And very smile generating .  Did I mention I love the seaside?  Time to move on, somewhat reluctantly, and head for the next feed stop.

As you’ll have gathered, that would involve a left turn, to the very cutely named Poppit Sands, where the food station was down on the beach at the RNLI base there.  Generally speaking the signs were pretty good – there was a mixture of these small ones and some very large ones – black arrows on luminous yellow.  There were a few places where a CAUTION sign would have come in useful, and a couple of places where more signs would have been good.  The main shortcoming was the route split signs which were mostly handwritten black on white, which is fine for “loose road surface” warnings when you’re going slowly and have time to pay attention, but they’re not what you’re looking for when you’re flying along and your eye is tuned to look for yellow/black signs.  Quite a few people ended up doing routes that they hadn’t intended to…but luckily I wasn’t one of them.  Plus the gamin file was accurate so if it had happened I’d have been able to rectify things.  Unlike last weekend.  Anyway, back to the course  46 miles and another half a banana under my belt.

second foodstop

the sands at Poppit

There was, unusually, a small amount of flat riding alongside the river here (ooh, the novelty) as we headed inland to find some more hills to climb.  Can’t follow the coast forever…

If I recall correctly, as it all blurs into one,  the next section involved some fairly long steady climbing through dappled woodland roads.  I picked up a hanger on for a while, I even passed the odd person.  You know how it is, you climb at your own pace and that is what it is.  By the time we reached the third foodstop at a very tempting country pub in Boncath, it was definitely time for some sartorial adjustment.  Time for the leg warmers to come off – job more than done – and for my legs to come out.  Woo hoo!  So that’s leg warmers stashed in the ever-expanding saddle bag, another half a banana eaten, and a seriously wistful backward glance at the pub garden…  At least this was 58 miles in, so the halfway mark had come and gone, seeing another mental hurdle overcome.

third foodstop at Boncath

Having checked my route card once again i knew that the really big climb of the day was coming up next (like all the others were little!) – over the Prescellis, which I probably can’t spell.  When the hills you’re climbing up have burial mounds and cairns on them, it’s a safe bet that you’re a long way up…and since it’s probably a climb of around 6 miles or so, you’ve still got a long way to go.  I was worried it would be too steep for me – I definitely have a gradient threshold – but it wasn’t.  It was most certainly hard work though!

It just kept going up.  Every time you turned, there was more up to go.  They have more than enough up to go around over there!

I distracted myself by taking photos, and doing my best to remember I was supposed to be enjoying the day out, so I admired the ever expanding scenery, the wheels went around, and the hill got climbed.  Or owned as my eldest would put it.

I had a brief internal Titanic moment – an “I’m the king of the world” kind of thing – as I briefly stopped at the top, along with others, to appreciate how far I’d come.

I had.  And I have.  Once upon a time, not so long ago, a hill like that would have killed me…and today it didn’t .  This was the highest point on the Tour, and although there was a still a chunk of miles to do, and a fair bit more climbing, it definitely felt like I’d broken the back of the ride.  And then you get to go down…*grin*.  There were some cracking descents on this ride – some of which were a little too technical for me to enjoy, but others were just awesome.  My max speed was 40.5mph which, for me, is pretty exceptional, and it felt even faster than that!  Maybe this sign applies to me?

Considering that the Welsh highways authority must spend twice as much on road paint as anywhere else, what with having to mark everything in two languages, this sign is probably illegal and should say “Cyclists Slow Araf”…  There’s something about seeing ARAF in big letters on the road – I think it reminds me of previous Welsh rides – always hilly and always hard work!  In a good way.  Honest .

More views, more climbing, before discovering the fourth foodstop lurking in a sheltered valley at Pontfaen, where a rather fat chocolate labrador was roaming around in the hope of grabbing leftovers from cyclists who were far more interested in feeding themselves than a dog *grin*.  78 miles in, if you’re counting…

fourth food stop at Pontfaen

The radio was playing in the background, playing “Beautiful Day” by U2 as it happens, in remarkably appropriate and oddly coincidental fashion.  A few of the riders here had missed the route split, and had ended up doing the long route instead of the medium one.  Given the weather they didn’t seem too cross about it, but wow, if you hadn’t trained for it, that was going to hurt!

As I carried on my way, we joined back up with the shorter routes, which also put me back on familiar turf.  It’s amazing how much you remember.  The flat fast stretch through the valley was still fun, and the long steep climb out of it was still exactly that, except that this time I didn’t fall off and have to walk – bonus!

moor views..see what I did there?

OK, so holding the camera straight was getting harder.  The advertised 2400 metres of climbing had come and gone, and there was still up going on.  Maybe not massive ups, but still…  There were three of us now.  I’d somehow ended up with Bridgend man again, who ruefully agreed that I hadn’t been joking when I said it was a hilly ride, and just by the way his arse was in tatters.  And apparently I’m allowed to quote him on that *grin*.  Our third musketeer was another lady rider – there only were 19 of us – also bizarrely doing her first sportive.  Well that’s one way to make me feel like an old hand I suppose.  We reached the last food stop, at 89 miles in, to be greeted by Father Christmas.  No, I have no idea why either.

fifth foodstop at Letterston

Bridgend rider

That left us with 15 miles to do, hopefully around an hour or so’s riding, which I knew was essentially rolling.  To be fair, that doesn’t mean flat though, and at that point, any sort of incline most definitely feels like a climb!  We rolled together, more or less, for quite a while, though we did split up from time to time.  The lady behind me apologised for using my wheel to get home but hey, such things are karma, and what goes around comes around.  After a while she perked up a bit and we chatted some.  Apparently I made the hills look easy and just glided up them.  If I’d had the energy I’d have fallen off my bike laughing *grin*.  That has to be the funniest thing ever…but as compliments go, I’m keeping that one.  I may even frame it.  With about 8 miles to go I started to get hints of feeling like I was losing it again.  I had two choices – MTFU, stick with the guys, pretend to be in control and get back or…be sensible.  I was sensible.  I dropped back, and ate a packet of my lucozade jelly beans.  Judging by how good they tasted I must have really needed them – they were bloomin’ lovely.  I span my legs for a while and gave them time to cut in, which luckily they did.  At least having had it happen once, I can now recognise the feeling and deal with it early, right?   As I got my act back together, I found myself leapfrogging another rider – let’s call him Altura guy – and once this had happened a couple of times, we started doing it properly, taking turns at the front, and generally making those last few miles that bit more pleasant.  Oh, and easier too! .

an Altura wheel to follow

The last little loop takes you teasingly around and away from your goal, which you can see but not touch, so as to bring you back into St Davids from the bottom with a last little kick of a hill past the Cathedral and through the very gatehouse that I walked through yesterday.  A very scenic and attractive way to do it.  Just as well I knew it was coming though – last minute hills are not good!

There wasn’t time to take a better photo – otherwise I’d have ended up riding into the Gatehouse not under it, which would have been a tad embarrassing.  Good thing I got decent photos yesterday .

Right.  Job done.  Getting to the finish line was but a formality now, but it was nonetheless a welcome sight.  I was the 74th rider in apparently.  Timer chip scanned, number clipped off for me (nice touch that), and once both were handed in, I got my time slip again, a voucher for a free bowl of cawl, and a lovely Welsh slate commemorative coaster.  Both attractive and useful – definitely one up on another medal or water bottle!

Yes it was a long day in the saddle.  Hillier than advertised – either 2892 metres without corrections or 3845 metres with – tho I’ve no idea which to go with.  It had coast, hills, estuary, moors, woodlands…every kind of scenery under the sun, under the sun *grin*.  I’d like to have gotten in at under 8 hours ride time, but hey, it’s not a race right, and it’s not like I missed it by far.  Having rolled up my sleeves, and removed various layers, I have some of the most ridiculous sunburn lines going, and may not need to wear blusher for several months to come.  Not that blusher is a big part of my life anyway, but it makes a point.  In conclusion it was long, it was hard….but I didn’t walk, I didn’t bonk, and I did what I set out to do.  I had a long day out in the saddle in the sun .  Not as long as some – the final rider in had been out there just under 11 hours.  Chapeau!  Now that’s a long day!

Cycling time: 8:01:56 hrs
Distance: 105.38 miles
Avs: 13.1 mph.
ODO: 13694 miles

Official time: 8:35:15 – 98th of 167 finishers. 9th of 19 women. Bronze.

As you can see, my route card looks a little less pristine now…I think I may have perspired on it whilst it was stuck in my back pocket *grin*.

I shouldn’t have been riding this morning, but I was.  Partially because when I arranged it earlier this week I’d forgotten that my sportive is on Saturday not Sunday.  And hey, it was dry, and that’s rare, and I’d have had to do something, and it was better than the gym…  So I went for a quick loop with Mim, which was mostly flat, but very windy.  Done.  The hardest part was making sure I didn’t wear anything I might need tomorrow!

Cycling time: 1:16:24 hrs
Distance: 20.13 miles
Avs: 15.8 mph.
ODO: 13589 miles

Then I had to wash the bike, wash me, pack the car, faff a great deal before finally admitting there was no more faffing to be done, and then set off towards Pembrokeshire.  It was a 4 hour drive, if you include a stop at Swansea West services for a Costa break, but it went smoothly.  The sun was shining, the motorway gods were smiling, and the roads were fairly clear even once the motorways had turned into A roads.  It’s like getting to Neverland.  Not so much “Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning”, more keep driving west until you run out of M4 then keep driving some more until you hit the coast .

It must be a leftover from summer holidays as a child, but there’s that moment when you see a glimpse of shimmering silver on the horizon, when you get to be the first one to see the sea, and you grin like a child  And then it opens out before you…

 It’s a bit like going on holiday and everything!  A holiday where you get to ride your bike all day.  That can’t be bad, right?

Oriel y Parc

The Tour of Pembrokeshire HQ is at Oriel y Parc this year, and because I was here today not tomorrow, I actually got to sign on in advance, which makes a nice change.  I wasn’t the only one doing the same, and as we did that, the start village was rapidly going up around us.

Registration

This is at the start village.  I’m guessing it’s a sound system, right?m

Signing on took no time at all.  I caught up with Peter and Carlos and some of the other riders I’d met at the Prologue ride last year, but I still had/have hours to kill.  So once I’d checked into the Alandale Guesthouse again, into my very small but perfectly formed single room, I decided to be a tourist.  I didn’t visit the Cathedral last time I was here, and it seemed verging on rude to come here again and not visit it again, so I took myself off down the hill and went and wandered around it.

How about an arty shot for you?

Even then I hadn’t killed enough time, so I decided to go to the seaside.  Here’s my little red car at the seaside  :)

It’s at a place called Whitesands, which seems quite appropriate.

I love wide open spaces, and wind, and waves, and blue, and space…it’s all very zen like and very good for my head  I’d forgotten how much I love it, and it was a very good time to be reminded.  The beach was practically empty, and I walked down to the water’s edge and listened to the sound of the waves for a while, before walking over the headland and back to the car.

Have you seen the colour of the sky?  Wouldn’t it be lovely if it stayed that way for tomorrow, and the wind dropped a bit?  Of course I now have NO idea what layers to wear…I don’t know what to do with a 12C sunny not very windy forecast! *grin*.

I have eaten leftover pasta.  And nutella on rice cakes.  Very soon it will time to get a reasonably early night before getting up and getting on with it again.  Night all .

Which brings us to this evening, and further planning ahead.  I made a massive pasta dish.  Since I’m away tomorrow night and I seriously doubt I’ll easily be able to find safe food to eat down there, and I really can’t risk upsetting my insides before the ride, I needed to make enough for both tonight and tomorrow night.  There has been a tendency for the safe food I’ve cooked to be a bit bland, inevitably I suppose what with onion and garlic being banned, but I nailed it tonight.  Not only did it taste good, nice and rich with a bit of a kick, but the mob happily ate it too! .

Fry 1 chopped green chilli in olive oil, add chopped turkey breast and brown.  Add half carton of passata and one can of chopped tomatoes.  Add oregano, mixed herbs, black pepper, and one carton of deli olives with lemon.   Bring to the boil and then let simmer for a while.  Toast one packet of pine nuts.  Cook one pack of gluten free brown rice pasta.  Drain pasta.  Mix with the sauce, and stir in the pine nuts.  Serve. Done.  Nom, nom, as my youngest would put it .

Carbs duly loaded methinks.  I even managed to knock up a safe dessert – lactofree vanilla icecream topped with lactofree strawberry yoghurt and linseeds.  Gotta get some dairy into the diet somewhere right?

Since I’m off tomorrow afternoon, I need to do all my prepping and faffing tonight.  Which, due to this low FODMAP diet is even more complicated than it used to be, due to the amount of food I need to take with me!

Just look at all that stuff!  There’s breakfast for two days – gluten free muesli and bananas and lactofree milk.  There’s tonight’s pasta for tomorrow night.  There’s rice cakes and nutella, and gluten free pretzels, if all else fails, for Saturday night.  Then there’s numerous various bars, jelly beans, and Nuun, all for the ride itself and possibly after.  That’s not including the fizzy water that’s already in the car, or the flask of coffee that will get me down there, or the bottle of wine I might need on Saturday night.  Blimey!

And I haven’t even started to sort kit, and layers, and clothes, and…*engage panic mode*!  Aaarrrrrrrrrrrgh!

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!

So, I’m hoping you like it, and don’t shoot me down…*fingers crossed*.

Back to the wonderful world of IBS and cycling.  Clearly I did not get my strategy for Sunday right, because if I had, I wouldn’t have bonked like that.  Looking back on it, I think I probably got it wrong on several levels.  First off, I probably didn’t start eating for the event early enough.  Paying attention the day before is probably not sufficient…

pre-event fuelling
I managed to eat an IBS friendly, and fairly successful, meal on the Saturday night.  I have discovered debbie & andrew’s Harrogate sausages, stocked by Tescos, which are gluten, wheat, and dairy free.  More importantly they actually taste really nice!  These were served up with sweet potato/potato mash, as recommended by @skipinder, and carrots.  On Sunday morning, I had a bowl of Tesco’s Free From Pure Oat Muesli, with a sliced banana, added linseeds, and Lactofree semi-skimmed milk.  With black coffee, of course .

during the event
Thanks to Skipinder (again!), I’ve discovered Nakd bars, which are just fruit and nuts.  They’re gluten, wheat, and dairy free AND not glued together with apple juice, honey, or any of the other things I’m supposed to avoid.  I got a mixed box of 18 for £14.99 from Natural Balance Foods , but you can get them from supermarkets.  They’re possibly cheaper there, but you can’t guarantee the range, or that they stock the gluten free ones.  I ate these during the ride.  However actually I only ate 1 and half bars, which since they’re contain only around half the calories of the bars I used to eat, and ate more of, probably goes a long way to explaining why I bonked.  No lunch, 1.5 bars, 1.5 bananas, and half a packet of lucozade jelly beans towards the end…hm.

I’m drinking Nuun these days, for many reasons.  There’s a great range of flavours, some of which, like the lemon tea, contain caffeine for that extra boost.  They’re not too sweet.  The tablets are easy to carry around for when you need to top up your bottles.  Although Nuun tablets are gluten free, they’re not strictly FODMAP safe as they have sorbitol in, but they don’t contain any carbs, and drinking it doesn’t seem to disagree with me.  All good…but there’s not much in there on the calorie/fuel front.  I only got through a bottle and half of that too, which may not sound much, but it was cold, and that’s not unusual for me.  Though maybe it should be.

after the event
Chips.  Not ideal no doubt, but I think I’d earnt them, and I had to eat something to ride home!  At least they’re high carb, right?  I then went home and ate gluten free snack things with the family, before what was due to be a safe and pleasant dinner.  Yet again I completely forgot that gluten free does not mean safe, and forgot to check the packets for ingredients.  Man, I so should have!  So the carefully prepared roast chicken, potatoes, and carrots, made thinking of me, was a little wasted on me, though I ate it anyway.  At least white wine is safe…*grin*

lessons learnt
Clearly I need to eat more.  I need to start getting the food in a good few days beforehand.  I need to eat considerably more during the event, at regular even intervals.  Because there’s less in the Nakd bars, and they’re smaller, I need to eat more of them, and also keep my eyes out for other suitable bars, possibly with more in.  I’m going to see if I can make my own flapjacks for taking with me too – anyone know any good recipes?  On a positive note, I always used to end up with horrible indigestion by the end of a long ride and I didn’t have any of that.  Also, having not eaten anything that irritated me, the paracetamol I was taking only had to deal with my knee, which it did adequately, and I didn’t have to resort to ibuprofen.

last night’s dinner.  
A very simple risotto made with arborio rice, home made chicken stock (made from the roast chicken carcass, safe veg, bouquet garni, bay leaves), frankfurters, green and red peppers.

Colourful, but a little bland.  As usual though, risotto is much nicer cold.  Which is why I’ll be having it for dinner in a minute too .

Me, an unexpectedly present GB, and Gary met in the Square at 7:10 and headed off to Broadway Caravan Park to sign in.  Blimey it was nippy out there!  So far my sartorial choices were good ones!  We were amongst the first there, so the queue was negligible, and actually there weren’t yet that many other riders around full stop.

Sign on

We signed in, and were given our timing devices – which this time around were timing chips on lanyards to be worn around the neck and scanned in at each feed station.  For those leaving straight away they were scanned there and then and off you went.  I needed to do the usual pre-ride faff and use the facilities (as ever the ladies was free and there was a queue for the gents – is that positive discrimination ).  We headed for the start, ready to get scanned and on the road, only to find that the lady required was still back at sign in, so I had to back track, get scanned, and then head off.  Not a big problem when there’s only a few riders around, just minorly irritating, but I think when there were more, she’d have been better off standing by the exit…  While I’m at it – not loving the lanyard things.  Unzipped layers mean the darn thing kept dangling around and having to be tucked away.  I like the being scanned at every stop though – means you can’t switch from the Gran route to the Medio without anyone knowing, which must make sorting out the times easier.

Right, off we go.  I got half way into Cheddar before remembering to start Bella off though – ‘doh!  Time for GB to take us up the Gorge.  I swear he only manned up and came out so to do *grin*.  And he still made it look easy!  He’s the one furthest away from me…unsurprisingly.

Me, going up the Gorge

Cheddar Gorge gets included on every Somerset sportive.  Which is great, I appreciate that it’s iconic and all that, but it’s not actually the most challenging climb in the world.  Some of those that were to come later in the ride are/were far worse!  So we pootled our way up the Gorge.  Clearly I’d usually sprint my way all the way to the top, but considering the length of the ride, I thought it best to pace myself…;) *grin*.  We picked up another rider along the way – Nick from East Harptree – who was allowed to join us as he was wearing the male ride uniform of the day (see above) and thus blended in perfectly – what’s black, white, and red all over? .  He also won a place in our elite ranks by taking a turn at the front with me as we headed across the Mendips towards the descent to Rodney Stoke.  A little more climbing…

…a quick stop to take in the stunning views of the Levels to the south…

…and time for the first decent descent of the day, watching out for gravel and traffic, all the way to the main road at Rodney Stoke.  Nice  The guys had waited for me, and we posse’d up and headed off over extremely familiar roads to Wedmore and out through to Blackford.  This is when GB decided he’d made his point, he had done the MTFU thing, however advisable that may have been, he’d seen if he could, and he could, so it was time to make the right decision and head for home.  I’m glad he came out to play, it’s been a while, but I’m also glad he went home and didn’t do any more damage  So then there were three.

We headed out through Mark, which is reputedly the longest village in the country.  This may well be true.  I’m not going to argue.  Cycling through it certainly seems to take a while.  One of the publicans who initially introduced me to cycling called it a “mother-in-law road”.  Because it goes on, and on, and on…  Which it does!  From there we headed across the flats to the Woolavington climb, and then the descent into Hell.  Aka Bridgwater.  Suburban roads and obstacles and plenty of traffic even at that time of the morning, though less than sometimes.  I think it was a bit early for most of the residents.  We were even heckled by a white haired lady pedestrian, which is not unusual for Bridgwater, but this time she was saying “Up the Cyclists” which has to be a first!  Go that woman – bucking the Bridgwater trend!

Time to head for the next big climb of the day – Enmore Hill.  Crawler mode engaged…  I’ve been up here a couple of times but I’m far from familiar with it, other than knowing that I can get up it without walking.

It’s not a constant climb, more of a three steps up, one step down, affair, and as a whole apparently goes on for 10k.  I guess that depends on where you consider the start and finish to be though.  I knew we were heading for the first food stop at The Pines Café, which came sooner than I expected since I vaguely remembered it being right at the top of the climb, and it wasn’t quite.  35 miles in, and it was definitely time for a quick break.

Sadly the café was closed, which meant so were most of the facilities, and I had to use the gents, which even though I’d waited until it was apparently clear, probably gave the non-cyclist who’d sneaked in there when we weren’t looking a bit of a shock!  Hey, needs must…*grin*.  Half a banana later, a quick photo of Nick, and it was time to be on our way again.

Nick Howard

It wasn’t the top of the climb, we had some more up to do.  The sun had been coming out for a while and at the stop, after the heat generated by that long climb, I’d contemplated removing layers.  I’m glad I didn’t because it was just as chilly as ever setting off again!

Rays of yellow...

There was a lovely descent to follow down Constitution Hill, which could have used a couple of “CAUTION” signs due to the bends, gravel, and the fact that cars go up it when you’re trying to go down it!  Luckily I’m a cautious soul…but that didn’t stop the white van and blue car coming the other way as I went around the sharp right hand bend half way down giving me a bit of a shock!

Shortly after this we came to the route split.  Left for us, as Gary had decided to switch from the Medio to the Gran to keep me company (thanks Gary!), and right for Nick, doing his first ever sportive.  And then there were two.  We had some nice pottering through pretty villages and across expanding countryside, before the next big climb.  I had been blissfully unaware of this one, having completely failed to do my usual level of research, but Gary was far better prepared so at least I had a little warning.  And the long climb up to Exmoor is a doozy!  8k at 15% ish, and then 8k at 10/12%.  Lovely…well, doable.  Long enough to get into my climbing rhythm and just get on with it.

me and my shoulder...

The views behind were stunning and luckily, as we headed towards Wheddon Cross, we got some that we could actually look at as we went along, although as you can see, it was a little hazy out there.

view over the Bristol Channel

There seemed to be an unfeasible amount of going down to the bottom of the valley that took us to Dunster.  A valley that was, rather unfortunately, also acting as a remarkably efficient wind tunnel!  What with that wind coming from the North East, and having properly cooled down coming down, I was freezing again by the time we got into Dunster.

Dunster Church. And traffic.

Dunster was as popular as ever, full of people not looking for cyclists, so it was a case of handle with care and get out the other side, from where you get a good view of the castle.  Dunster Castle, unsurprisingly.  A real, National Trust owned, honest to goodness castle.  Not like ours

I wasn’t quite ready to take the bus though…;)

This put us on the A39 for a bit, which wasn’t ideal, as it can get pretty busy down there.  The next food stop was looming, in Blue Anchor, the left turn sign for which was partially obscured, but luckily we spotted it.  And then suddenly there was a big climb looming ahead.  No fair – I wasn’t expecting that!  Ah well…  Gary decided such things would be best tackled after answering nature’s call, so I waited for him at the top and took his photo, amongst others, to pass the time.

Gary Humphries

The second food stop was on the sea front at Blue Anchor, in the sun, with the seaside, and everything.  They’d also negotiated the use of the toilets at the nearby café, which was handy.

It was 65 miles in by now, and we took a slightly longer than usual breather, as I was feeling the need for one, but it wasn’t long before we were back following those signs.  I had the route on Bella, but Bella, along with various other people’s gadgets, had been yelling “off route” on and off all day so when she started doing it again, I pretty much ignored her, and we headed off up the long climb out of Watchet and rejoined the A39.

Me on the climb out of Watchet

Shortly after this things went pear shaped.  Turns out we, and many others, missed the right turn that would have taken us up Crowcombe Hill.  Looks like the locals had been “helping” again…  By the time we’d worked out that yes, we knew where we were, but that no, we were not where we were supposed to be, it was easier to carry on and rejoin the route that way than retrace our steps.  The mileage looked to be much the same, and hey, I’d been dreading that particular climb all day, so I guess fortune had decided not to favour the brave for a change, but to shine on me instead .

views inland from the coast road

I’ve been known to wonder what it would be like to cycle along that particular stretch of road, having driven it many times, and now I know.  Swoopy, and quite enjoyable, as it turns out.  The same cannot be said for about the following hour or so of riding.  From Cannington, where our route and the official one merged and all our Garmins beeped their satisfaction simultaneously, into Bridgwater again, through the chaos again and then out the other side on the rather scary and not busy enough to slow the traffic down dual carriageway back to the M5 junction.  Not fun.  A tad scary from time to time to be honest.

the highway from hell...

At least we had our signs back again, right?  Nice big signs that were, mostly, pretty unmissable.  A few more repeater signs wouldn’t have gone amiss on long stretches, and also few more signs at the worst or most important junctions.  A lot of the signs were put up high to avoid those pesky kids meddling, but then if your head is down, or you’re temporarily distracted, you can easily miss those, especially if there’s only one of them.

Right, 95 miles in, and the next, and final food stop, came after the relief of a left turn before the motorway junction, as an artic and trailer thundered past me…*shudder*.  Having three food stops definitely helps break the ride up into more manageable chunks, and it would have been even better if the third one had had obvious toilet facilities too, but two out of three ain’t bad   From here on in, being back on home turf, I knew that the terrain was essentially flat, and there was only 20 miles to go.  How hard could it be, right?

Well even though the website written description had said Burnham on Sea, Bleadon, Axbridge and back…the .gpx and the signs said we had to go through some fairly unpleasant and major roads through Highbridge and then briefly along the A38 just to make us go over Brent Knoll.  Which struck me as a tad gratuitous.  At least there were some perfectly presentable public toilets on Brent Street before I had to tackle it.  I prefer the hill the other way around, but actually it was ok.  Ok considering that I had a great many miles already in my legs.  Not ok by any other standards you might use.  Hey, I got up it right?

Several other riders went past asking respectively for new legs, their mother, and a new hobby…  Good to see we all still had a sense of humour *grin*.

Brent Knoll up close and personal

Not far now…a bit more flat, and then the all too familiar climb past the Webbington where, to make it more interesting, I got the camera out again.  Poor Gary…

And here’s Brent Knoll from afar.  We went over that.  Well, actually, over some of it, it’s more like up and over one side, before i go over-egging the cake.

Right.  Home straight.  We are nearly there yet  Down t’other side, no horses this time, and through to Cross and the junction with the A38 – another place a “CAUTION” sign would have come in useful.  I dismounted, as is essential there, and realised I was absolutely totally geknackert.  Not a problem, as we were nearly there.  Right?  Wrong.

We crossed over and started the climb up towards the bypass, and I dropped off the back like a stone.  Lost it completely.  Gary headed off into the distance, and I tried to remember how to make pedals go around.  And how to stay on the bike.  And why, even when I’d finally reached the going down the bypass bit, albeit with headwind, getting anywhere was so hard.  It was the most bizarre feeling.  I guess I bonked.  Not something that’s ever really happened before.  And it’s just as well it didn’t happen any earlier as I’m not sure what I would have, or would have been able to have, done.

I limped, metaphorically, up to the Finish, got my time swiped, and went and sat on a bench before I actually fell over.  And I’m not even joking.  I dread to think what colour I was – I do a good ghost impression at the best of times!  It took me a few minutes to get it together enough to go see Gary and hand in my timing chip.  Luckily, rather than head straight for home, which I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to do, Gary fancied chips and was kind enough to buy me some too.  Best.  Chips.  Ever.  Just because I could feel them helping me climb up the stairway back to normality.  Shame the same cannot be said about the quality of the coffee…but it probably helped regardless.

waiting to scan riders at the Finish

Cycling time: 7:10:11 hrs
Distance: 109.8 miles
Avs: 15.3 mph.
ODO: 13536 miles

This is what Bella has to say for herself, and this is my official time card, which was a nice touch.  No waiting for some website to post them for a change .  Since we weren’t wearing numbers, identifying who’s who on the photos when they go up could be interesting though.

Once I’d pulled myself together, which took a while,  I introduced myself and had a nice long chat with t’other half of the organiser, David, who was busy being told by everyone what a great event they’d had, which must have been nice.  390 riders had done the ride, a long way up on last year’s 89 for sure!  She was very friendly and chatty, and actually seemed genuinely interested in what I’d thought, which is nice.  Positive criticism taken that way can only help make the event bigger and better .

Sue Moore

Oh, and by way of a post script, my layers choice was right.  I may have been a little hot occasionally, but the cold always came back and, other than stashing my gilet after Watchet, I was sorted .  Furthermore I have completely forgotten to mention that today was the first time Gary has done over 100 miles!  And he didn’t even look tired, or like any of it was hard work – the man is a machine! *grin*.  Well done Gary – and many thanks for keeping me company, I really appreciate it .

UPDATE: there were 190 riders on the Gran Fondo, of which 7 DNF, and I came 98th overall and 5th of the 13 women who did it.  Not bad!  And better than I thought actually .  Photos are going up, and my blue legwarmers have made me easy to find, so I’ve added in a couple of me above at the relevant places, just to prove I was there.   There’s a lot to be said for free downloadable photos .  Official review is now up at Cyclosport.

It can’t have escaped your notice that I’ve been having some food/diet issues.  I’ll spare you the gory details, not that the details are gory, more painful and/or uncomfortable…but that’s not relevant.  It all started for real on New Year’s Day and has been pretty constant ever since.  Which at least makes it easier to keep track of how long it’s been going on, right?  I’ve had various tests and scans to rule out the sinister, and the current thought is some sort of IBS.  Why?  Who knows?  It may be, apparently, at least partially due to the use of ibuprofen (google the side-effects of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories) for my knee problem.  However the why is less important that dealing with the what.

I was referred to this dietetic consultant and as of last week, I’ve been put on a low FODMAP and lactose free diet for 8 weeks.  With, of course, no ibuprofen.  This will show whether or not my symptoms respond to a low FODMAP diet.  If so, we then start re-introducing foods bit by bit and seeing which ones I personally am sensitive to.  If I don’t respond to it, or don’t respond sufficiently, then I guess it’s something else and the investigations continue…

The low FODMAP diet is a way of managing the symptoms of IBS, and FODMAP stands for

• Fermentable
• Oligo-saccharides (fructans & galacto-oligosaccharides)
• Di-saccharides (lactose)
• Mono-saccharides (fructose)
• And
• Polyolds (sugar alcohols)

You have no idea how complicated this is.  I can barely pronounce half of those things, and I certainly can’t remember them when I’m trying to explain it to anyone.  Check out this example of a list of what I can and cannot eat.   The things I have to avoid!   There are many such lists, many opinions…this is the ‘net after all…so to keep things simple I’m going by the books my dietician has given me.  After all that’s what I’m paying her for, right?  I wish it was as simple as gluten free, which would actually be easier.  Buy the gluten free products – job done.  Sadly not.  This is no wheat, rye, barley, flour, pasta, gnocchi, noodles, no pulses, a whole heap of banned veg/fruit, most annoying of which are onion and garlic.  The lists go on, and on, and on…  And that’s before you rule out the allowed things that are not lactose free!

I had to wait a long time to see the dietician, as she’s a busy lady, but I knew low FODMAP was why I was being referred, so I’ve sort of been trying to do it in a haphazard fashion for a few weeks.  The strict diet, all informed, with lists to hand, only started on Monday.  I have to admit to a tendency to being lazy about it, especially when it’s just me.  Rice cakes + ham, or nutella, and I’m fine, so I tend to stick to what I know and eat that.  However, as I’m sure you’ll be keen to tell me, this doesn’t precisely count as a balanced diet!  So I think it’s fair to say I haven’t really gotten the hang of it yet.  On top up that, when I do venture beyond the boring, I keep slipping up.  For example last night’s camembert is FODMAP safe…but it isn’t lactose free – something I am now more than aware of.  Due to the restrictive nature of the diet I am becoming more and more aware of what I eat and what, if any, effect it has on me.  I’d say this was interesting, but to be honest, I’m getting more than a little bored of it all now.  As for explaining myself to everyone else…I’m boring myself rigid even if not my audience!  The last thing I want to be is one of those fussy eaters who bore/annoy everyone in equal measure…

Whether or not IBS turns out to be the diagnosis, sticking to the diet seems to be helping at least partially.  I am approaching this in a similar way to how I deal with a sportive, I am breaking it down into manageable chunks.  I am not thinking about the long-term as yet, since that is, as yet, an unknown quantity.  Right now it’s just about the next 8 weeks.  About fuelling myself for my sportives, eating to recover after them, and getting me up those Dolomites.  There’s no way I’m playing around and re-introducing foods, and presumably their related symptoms, before then.

So I’m now setting about finding out what I can eat, what I can cook.  And to counteract my terribly flawed diet, I’ve got enough vitamin supplements and the like to take that Zipvit now consider me a valued customer and dispatch such things first class.  And I don’t want to hear your opinions as to whether or not they work as if I believe they do, me and the placebo effect will be very happy together .

Now I can’t be, and in fact I know I’m not, the only cyclist having problems with diet and fuelling.  So I’m going to be sharing some of my dietary successes and, no doubt, failures with you.  After all, it’s clearly going to be a large part of my cycling, so it might as well be part of my blog too!

Let’s start with my first success – always good to start on a high note right?

This week I made a beef stir fry with ginger, green chilli, strips of beef, carrots, green beans, bean sprouts, rice noodles, oyster sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, and fresh coriander – added in pretty much that order, and not all that precisely.  All “safe” ingredients.

stirfry leftovers in the wok

my serving of real food!

It was quite tasty, though possibly needs something to give it a little more oomph.  Next time…

To follow on, and because we could, we (being youngest and I) made a cake.  A Lemon and Orange Cake, recipe courtesy of BBC Good Food.  Which was, not to put too fine a point on it, totally awesome!  I was a bit worried that the mashed potato wouldn’t work as we were using leftover mashed potato from the night before – ie with lactose free milk and butter in it – but OMG!  It was awesome.  I have to say was, because I ate the last bit at lunchtime today *grin*.  It was moist and fluffy and citrussy and possibly one of the best cakes I’ve ever eaten, let alone made!  I’m really hoping I can duplicate that success again soon.  Well, it’s got mashed potato in, so it’s practically carb loading, right?

The whole cake...

...going, going...

The best thing about this meal?  Well, several best things actually.  It had two courses.  I actually ate real food.  There were no serious consequences – though next time it’ll be lactofree butter in the cake and the mash.  And, here’s the real biggie, the whole family could eat it, ate it with me, and liked it.  It was almost like being normal or something! *grin*.

There you go Mark – now look what you’ve started!

The upside to being left to ride on my own was being able to leave when I wanted to, so the 9:00am start slipped by an hour.  Having ridden so much around here lately I was hard pushed to summon any enthusiasm for route planning, but I decided to go to the seaside, and to throw the odd hill in just for the hell of it.  Shipham Hill, that Bleadon Hill, and the Alpe de Winscombe as it turns out.  Or Winscombe d’Huez, which sounds better but makes less linguistic sense.

It wasn’t a very exciting ride.  It was just grey, in many senses of the word.  I got my layering strategy wrong.  Right number of layers I think, just the wrong layers.  Maybe even the wrong trousers.  I got cold, and lost my feet, and had to take less photos than usual.  Stopping was ok, standing still didn’t feel too cold, but getting going again with the NE air moving over your now slightly cooler self?  Not pleasant.  Still, this is a blog not a photo essay right?  And don’t worry, I still managed to take the odd picture, for those that prefer their books with lots of pictures in .

Just so as you know, this is the route that Bella says I did.  I hadn’t planned a route precisely, since I do kinda know my way around here by now…

…but just in case I didn’t, my route was full of signs…

Yes, that old (horse) chestnut  Lack of originality never stopped me, right? *grin*.

Being as I was going that way, and as I’m still rather smitten with it, I’m going to take you over the new bridge with me again.

The seaside was much the same as ever, but more eau de bacon than eau de candyfloss today, which either means that candyfloss is only a sunny day thing, or that when the weather is like this, the grockles in Weston don’t get out of bed and down to breakfast until later than usual.  Come to think of it, as long as it’s decent quality, I’m probably allowed to eat bacon.  Now there’s a thought…

I did get a little bored pootling around from time to time, so I wrote you a haiku.  I’m sure it breaks many haiku rules, in various heinous ways, but if you feel the need to express your concerns on the matter, go tell someone who cares .

“People in your tin boxes,
where are the flies on your teeth?”

However it is interesting that you can ride around here a lot, and still not notice when things change.  I don’t know when it happened, but this cottage on the corner before the ascent of Winscombe Hill used to be clad in smooth white render.  I kinda liked the way the corner was rounded and shaped.  Stripping it back can’t have been an easy job, nor the work of but a few hours, so why haven’t I noticed it before?  Interestingly the curvy nature of the corner is much harder to make out now.

And just for your delectation, here’s another sign…

Time to go running up that hill, at what turns out to actually have been a fairly pitiful speed, but at least I got to fly down the bypass home.  I did better on the other climbs though, and I was feeling alright throughout.  I think I was slower than usual overall because I was cold, and it took me ages to warm up when I got home.  I was also, let’s be honest, not feeling all that motivated.

Cycling time: 2:03:53 hrs
Distance: 32.19 miles
Avs: 15.6 mph.
ODO: 13426 miles

I got home to more post, though not for me this time.  To use a few clichés, there was a distinct lack of blue sky (thinking) today, but you’ll be pleased to see that my cat can still think outside the box *grin*.

NB – she usually has a thing for hiding inside boxes, should you be after some context to put that comment in .