Another Kingsway CC club ride today. I'm trying to build up my fitness for the Alps in September, so I've started adding on extra bits at the beginning and the end of my club rides. An extra 4 miles at the start, and a detour to a little beast of a hill at the end made for a 47.4 miler today.
Spent most of the ride up to Chooks (Tewkesbury) lagging a little behind, as a brisk pace was being set, and the leaders were going just a wee bit faster than my maximum speed. I quite like that, though, as the only way to get stronger is to keep pushing yourself to new limits. Anyway, they always pull over to wait for stragglers.... Decent bunch. Once we got to Chooks, I led our little group of 10 to the beer garden of the Royal Hop Pole (the starting point for many a local audax event), where a nice time was had by all in the sunshine.
Heading back down the A38 towards Gloucester,
@Largie003 suggested a detour towards his neck of the woods at Churchdown, so we took in some nice new lanes to Elmstone Hardwick and Boddington, and some not-so-nice new main roads into Churchdown - with me struggling to keep up at 20mph again. At Churchdown most of them made their way home, but I took advantage of
@Largie003's local knowledge and got him to show me the way to the bottom of Chosen Hill.
Chosen Hill is a curious little solo hill on the outskirts of Gloucester with a church at the top of it, and some amazing views across the Severn Vale and down to GCHQ and Gloucestershire Airport. If you have ever passed Gloucester on the M5, you may have noticed the little church at the top of the hill near J11A . Although only three quarters of a mile or so long, it is a bit of a beast of a climb up to the church, approached by a narrow winding lane that pitches up viciously in places. Mercifully it is only at its very worst for a couple of stretches of 100 metres or so. I turned up at St Bartholomew's Church at Sunday service chucking out time, and had to pick my way past a few cars coming downhill in particularly narrow stretches. Pleased to say I made it in one, so that's another one I can claim to have "beaten".
Sat on a bench admiring the view for 10 minutes wishing I had brought a camera.
After that, it was just an easy 5 or 6 miles back home, taking the most direct route via the rugby club and through Gloucester city centre, where I spotted a friend of mine heading out to the pub. That's my last ride before a week in the South of France, so I might not be able to post too much for a while. I'll try to keep up with this thread if I can, though, WIFI permitting. I seem to remember last time I surfed the net from France and looked for "Cyclechat" the search engine helpfully came up with something about menstrual cycles in cats!
Enjoy your cycling, everyone. Cheers,
Donger.
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