Did a “The trees are bigger near Warter” loop. The bit that Hockney painted was crowded with trade vans working on the house, but this shot from round the corner shows how varied the leaf display is this year - lots of popping yellows. 25 miles. 480m elevation.
Weird weather over here at the moment -- summer still doesn't quite want to arrive, so although the days are nice and warm (20C today), there's a really chilly breeze which takes temps down to near zero at night. Early rides are contraindicated under these circumstances.
Took off at lunchtime instead, duly slathered in sunscreen. This provided the perfect medium for trapping the little midges that hovered in clouds here and there along the route. Did the same ride out in the boondocks that I was doing when I fell off a year ago and broke my ankle, this time taking it easy and doing nothing silly. All was good -- it became progressively cloudier as the ride went on, taking the edge off the sunshine a bit.
Home in time for tea: 31.5km, 290m climbing. See my grossly distorted forearm below for midge and sunscreen pâté.
I've become increasingly aware that I just haven't been riding the retros much this year. In fact, it's been about six months since one of them got an outing, so I decided to grab my 1996 Stinson and go for a ride. Not as fast as I would have been on one of the newer bikes but, as it soaked up all the roughness the country lanes had to offer, riding on steel again felt good.