Thanks for coming along everyone! It was a good turnout - 13, including me.
I was quite exuberant on the outward leg in the sunshine on my revamped Cannondale which felt great. Once we got over the initial hills it was lovely to ride on flat roads for a change.
A few of the roads were busier than I like. The Fylde/Wyre districts are fairly compact and I'd had to contrive a meandering route to keep us there on the flatlands and not spend too much time in the hills beyond. I think I achieved a good compromise. One or two rough little roads, but I like to get off the beaten track.
I enjoyed sitting in the sunshine at the cafe again. I couldn't quite figure out why most of you chose to sit indoors though! Maybe not having 50 pounds of fat to insulate you from the breeze had something to do with it ...?
Just as on last year's ride, I started to get very uncomfortable on the return leg. I can bluff my way through 50-60 miles, but add another 40-50 to that and my bulk and lack of fitness really take their toll. For the last 30 miles I could hardly sit on the saddle, but didn't have the strength to stand. I rode back with Alun while everyone else was sent on. (No point in all of us getting back late!)
The only mechanical problems that I was aware of were suffered by wormo on the return leg. He had a blowout and a subsequent second puncture.
My navigation was not quite up to its normal high standard and I began to suspect what the reason was. Research today confirms the problem - the route I'd plotted produced a file containing well over 800 trackpoints. What I was unaware of was that my Garmin Etrex has a limit of 500 trackpoints per track. When I uploaded the file to it, it had discarded every other trackpoint. That meant that the trackpoints that I'd carefully placed on every junction had randomly disappeared from half of them! I had a rough idea of where to turn, but sometimes wasn't able to confirm the turns until I'd overshot them! It led to me taking a wrong turn on the run back to Longridge. Alun and I descended a hill but then I realised that we'd gone the wrong way. Fortunately, there was a road at the bottom of the hill taking us back towards the correct route. It added 2 miles to our ride so our total for the day was 103 miles.
I was very tired last night but the aches and pains in my legs, back and neck kept me awake until gone 04:30 am! I'm going to take a day or two to recover before doing another ride, but I really have to stop this big ride - nowt for weeks - big ride - nowt for weeks pattern of riding that I've got into - it hurts too much. I'm getting through these forum rides on willpower rather than fitness and it isn't sensible!
