On Tuesday I spent another couple of hours with the Cinelli’s midwife, who was doubling up as health visitor and checking that my new baby was doing well. Several tweaks and adjustments were made… The extra spacers went into the brakehoods. (I’d forgotten what those are called and just found this great picture to tell me – gotta love Google, right?). Cables and other things were tightened and checked over. The rims of the front wheel got a light sand papering and the front brake was toed in a bit. Nothing drastic all round really, mostly just making sure it was all running smoothly 200 miles in. A first service, as it were.
Since I’m doing the rather challenging Etape Cymru on Sunday I went out for a ride this morning just to make sure that everything was working ok. Nothing special, just the usual fairly flat training loop done, unusually, in what passes for sunshine around here! It was a bit nippy initially, but I warmed up and so did the day. I’m not going to give you a blow by blow account of the ride today, you can have fragmented oddments of stream of consciousness stuff instead…
My HBB jersey is a good thing in several ways. It’s a little more loose fitting than some of my other jerseys which, as us girls do, if you’re having a fat day, is a good thing. Since MaxiMe made pasta last night that accidentally involved a most evil and malicious vegetable stock cube, comfort was very important today. Yes, I know, stock cubes are small. They may be small but they’re concentrated, and contain onion, garlic, and leek amongst other things. And we’ve already established that garlic and I have had an acrimonious and permanent split. Small but deadly therefore!
But that’s not the only reason the jersey is good. You see it’s pink. Very pink. You see that right? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but in sweeping generalisation fashion, a great many drivers out there don’t like cyclists. But… Look, there’s a bl**dy cyclist. Ah, but it’s a cyclist wearing pink. It must be a girl. Ah…well that’s different then… I had several drivers today pull over to let me past. And reverse to let me past. And one of them was driving a white van! As I’ve said before, I wish the stereotype about white van drivers wasn’t true but the number of times they’ve proved that it is…*grrrr*! Unless they you’re a female cyclist wearing pink, of course 😉
While I’m at it, I quite like the pockets – they seem to come further around the sides than some jerseys so the myriad contents of my pockets are more accessible, including my camera. Oh, and it’s pink and white. With the emphasis being on the white. Which goes to show it washes well since keeping things white is something I am seriously bad at!
The bike is good for seeing things. For not flying past everything. For stopping when you want to…although not too often because that would kind of defeat the purpose of riding.
This is at Max Mills Farm, near Winscombe. I’ve been meaning to photograph it for ages and since it was just me and I could stop when I wanted, today I did. So was there more than one mill? Did it belong to Max? Or was it case of “Max mills corn for living…”? On the right hand side before you get here there is the most amazing derelict almost stately home. It looks like it once had a big walled garden too, with crumbling overgrown walls near the road, and I wonder what happened to it all, and who it belongs to now. Who lived there? Where did they go? It makes me feel all Secret Garden, like I should sneak in and discover it…but the entrance roads are so overgrown I’d need a machete, and there certainly isn’t room in my pockets for one of those. Besides, travelling equipped, even if only really to hack down brambles, is probably frowned upon.
It wouldn’t be a cycling blog without a sign right? I’d hate to let you down, fail to be predictable, etc. It’s very important to live up to expectations *grin*.
Maybe if these drivers had been paying attention to the sign, and the road, and each other, this wouldn’t have happened? And if, out of boredom or curiosity or some misguided sense of obligation, you’ve actually clicked on that link and read the article and seen the reference to the Brick House Sluice…this be it.
It’s right next to the sign you see. It all makes sense eventually, you just have to bear with me :).
It was quite a hard ride. There seemed to be quite a lot of wind around in the quite definitely the wrong direction quite a lot of the time. It was just me. It was quite flat, so lacking a bit of distractionary challenge. My left knee was twingeing a bit. I was probably tired – yesterday was for various reasons an exceptionally long day and getting out of bed and on to the bike was hard work in itself! I was probably pushing it harder than I should have been. I guess my mojo was a little missing. But it felt fast, and I guess it was fairly. The bike loves fast. It’s not keen on pootling. In fact I think it would like to go much faster. It’s only limited by me and my legs, I think I’m holding it back! It’s a bit like a thoroughbred horse being lumbered with with a teletubby for a jockey *grin*. Still, all the tweaks seemed to have worked. I didn’t really have much cause to check the brakes out, but having the brake levers that bit nearer made a surprisingly big difference. I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be for Sunday…*gulp*
For those of you who don’t live in the country and don’t see as many of these as me, here’s a picture of a big red tractor to round things off for you.
Cycling time: 1:52:37 hrs
Distance: 33.20 miles
Avs: 17.7 mph.
ODO: 231.47 miles
The next few days are going to be hard. Tomorrow is Howie‘s funeral which will be hard mentally. The Etape Cymru will be hard physically and possibly mentally too. But then nobody said life was easy, now did they? I should HTFU ;).
RIP Howie. Definitely a Lost Boy :(.