A nice 46 mile club ride with 2300ft climbing after the previous two club road rides had been cancelled due to snow.
It was beautifully sunny, despite the BBC's prediction of heavy rain. It was quite windy with some strong gusts but everyone was just glad to be back out on the bikes rather than in the garage on a turbo! Despite the head winds I still managed to beat my personal record on the two climbs by a decent amount.
The descents were rather 'interesting' as the previous nights heavy rain had washed lots of fine gravel on to the road and some sections of road surface had deteriorated a bit due to the icy weather that has (hopefully) just passed.
On the way back I managed 4th place on a popular segment (100+ riders), which I was really pleased with. Thing is I didn't even notice how fast I was going, apparently a 25mph average. Definitely nothing to do with tails winds though..
A few miles before getting home I found a mountain biker with a flat tire pushing his bike, so I offered him the use of my Topeak Road Morph pump which got his tires up to pressure when the lesser pumps he had borrowed wouldn't, which he was glad about! It turns out he had been to the exact same destination as me, but via tow paths rather than the road.
All in all a great day cycling - Hopefully 2013 continues this way!
It was beautifully sunny, despite the BBC's prediction of heavy rain. It was quite windy with some strong gusts but everyone was just glad to be back out on the bikes rather than in the garage on a turbo! Despite the head winds I still managed to beat my personal record on the two climbs by a decent amount.
The descents were rather 'interesting' as the previous nights heavy rain had washed lots of fine gravel on to the road and some sections of road surface had deteriorated a bit due to the icy weather that has (hopefully) just passed.
On the way back I managed 4th place on a popular segment (100+ riders), which I was really pleased with. Thing is I didn't even notice how fast I was going, apparently a 25mph average. Definitely nothing to do with tails winds though..
A few miles before getting home I found a mountain biker with a flat tire pushing his bike, so I offered him the use of my Topeak Road Morph pump which got his tires up to pressure when the lesser pumps he had borrowed wouldn't, which he was glad about! It turns out he had been to the exact same destination as me, but via tow paths rather than the road.
All in all a great day cycling - Hopefully 2013 continues this way!