Today's ride was planned as 108 miles with the first half VERY familiar to me as I travel it EVERY day to work, with the second half being a new experience until I made it back to the Cotswold Water Park then on to home.. The planned route was Chippenham > Malmesbury > Cirencester > Northleach > Burton on the Water > Stow on the Wold > Chipping Norton > Burford > Aldsworth > Poulton > Down Ampney > Asten Keynes > Brinkworth > Dauntsey > Chippenham (Planned Route here...)
But as what normally happens to my wonderful planning I couldn't find many of the little roads that we planned and I ended up doing 112.51 miles! (Actual Route here...)
After yesterdays high temp ride I opted for shorts today instead of cycling trousers.
The start was not as foggy as yesterday but the wind chill was still biting, at 3 miles I climbed up Bremhill and again as yesterday the sun was bright and very warming.
When I cycled past Kemble (Former home to the Red Arrows, then home to A10 servicing by the USAF and now a industrial park with active airfield) I stopped to take a picture of the current aircraft being disassembled, somebody has a contract to scrap Aircraft and there is always something being dismantled ;-)
I was both looking forward and dreading cycling the Fosse Way, looking forward because I drive it everyday and wanted to know what it was like to cycle it, and dreading because I know there are some b*stard hills on it.
Now on the face of it a 14% downhill looks nice but if you open the picture and look into the distance you will see a 14% hill going up the other side and the hill carries on at a lesser incline for 3-4 miles! The Fosse Way has 3 like hills on it!
It was quite pleasant climbing into Stow on the Wold even though it is a steep hill as all of the traffic was stationary and I cycled up the outside lane to the front of the queue and turned right to Chipping Norton
Going into Chipping Norton I noticed a very funny looking building on the right....I must research it and find out what it is...
From about this point onwards things started to get problematic for me! The tendons in my right leg and my hands started to get painful. Now I am not sure if the Tendons are due to the back to back rides or the massive climbs of today's ride. But I am certain that my hand difficulties are the sign of the cumulative ride, hopefully that will be resolved by the new bike!
The normal void I find at 60 -80 miles was so much worse... and at 100 miles I knew that I still had at least 10 more miles to go!
If it wasn't for the tendon problem I think I could have ignored the hand pain, but the Tendon was forcing me to stay in low gears and spin away, the moment the load started increasing the stabbing pain started ;-(
When I finally got home I initially found it quite difficult to walk, but after having a shower and relaxing a bit, everything appears to have freed up a little.
This weekend has been a success ;-)
I have managed to get my planned 200 miles in even after a mechanical failure.
I have proven to myself that I can endure back to back endurance rides.
I now know what my Achilles heel is! I must understand how to avoid tendon pain (What exercises I should perform)
This is the last 100 miles ride I do this year, I just cannot afford to take out 7 hours plus to jolly around the countryside, from now on I will focus on Turbo Trainer to build up strength and cadence and do shorter 30 mile rides just to keep the real world in focus.
So today's stats are.
112.51 miles in 7 hours 42 minutes (The Pain!) with an AVS of 14.6 mph
This gives a weekend total of 93.75 + 112.51 = 206.26 miles! (No wonder it hurt!)
Ohhh and my total mileage since day1 is now over 3000! if you'd told me 6 months ago that I will have cycled over 3000 miles by Christmas I would have thought you were mad!
Adendum.....Just found this....
1 comment:
Seen that building many times on the 'BIKE!', hehe mine has big 1134cc motor in it ;-)
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