At 44 miles yesterday I didn't quite manage a 50, but it was an excellent ride, and really quite hard for a lot of it.
I followed the Liverpool loop line, canal towpath, and NCN route 62 all the way to Southport, so off-road for almost all of the way - mostly gravel track. The worst surface, unexpectedly, was the tarmac coastal road path for the last few miles - it's heavily patched and had just the right kind of bumpiness to hammer at my wrists and try to rattle my teeth out.
NCN 62 is really good, and there were hundreds of cyclists using it - I was on my touring bike with Schwalbe Marathons, and I saw all sorts including road bikes, hybrids, uprights, MTBs, families with kids' bikes, and even a tandem (which you don't see off road very often) and a fat bike.
Big lunch at The Swan of plaice, chips and mushy peas - not the best way to fuel a bike ride, but it's the best fish & chips I know and I find it impossible to go to Southport and not eat there.
The ride back was on NCN route 810, along the coast and out past Crosby Marina. And this was the hard part - I had a steady strong southerly headwind all the way, with only a few short periods of respite from blocking trees. The BBC put it at 10-12 mph, though at the Crosby stretch along the seafront I'm sure it was stronger - I was pushing to just manage about twice walking pace (judging by the speed I overtook walkers). After close to 20 miles of relentless headwind, I cut it short a bit and headed directly home by road from Crosby.
Overall, I averaged around 12mph out (which I thought was reasonable for off road and the stop/start nature of the busy cycle/walker/dog route) but only about 8mph back against the wind. I got home feeling surprisingly good, especially as I pretty much got my feeding completely wrong from a cycling perspective - I ate hardly anything on the ride there and back, and there was that big lunch.
About an hour after getting home I went to visit a friend in hospital, so I walked there as a 'warm down' exercise - it was only 2 miles (and I got the bus back), but I think it helped.
Over the day, my fitbit reckoned I'd used up around 7,000 kcals - I know it's not accurate, but treating it as a vague ballpark my input for the day was only around half of that and I've hopefully burned up a tiny bit of flab ;-)
I finished the day with a couple of bottles of Erdinger Weissbier and slept very well!
Today I do feel pretty tired, and that's surely because of my insufficient calorie intake, but my legs feel fine. So, a good day, especially as it was mostly off road, but I'll be getting my fueling right for future rides.
Alan
