Iwasgoodonce
Old School Grand Master
The lovely weather this weekend even overcame the sloth I have been suffering from since the 27th December. With my do it all mountain bike still clad with fat tyres, it was the road bike I grabbed from the garage. Pumping up the tyres, I tried not to notice the couple of small slits in them.
Heading along the first road my decision to go for shorts seemed the correct one, it really was quite warm. Despite expectations of a slow, panting ride, it felt like I was going along ok despite the headwind. I slowly caught a guy and chatted for a while. He was out towards the end of a longer ride and peeled left as I went right towards the little lane that has tried to kill me a few times recently. It got closest to achieving its goal last winter with a sheet of ice. More recent attempts upon my person have been based on mud, running water, piles of dried mud and of course, potholes. It went with everything except dried mud today although heaped debris on the centre line took the place of it.
Through Tong and suddenly traffic everywhere! My usual peaceful back lanes completely taken over by endless cars. I can only assume the M54 was closed although I could hear traffic on it so, not sure?
As I approached Cosford, I had a look at the Garmin. Not yet an hour in? What? Usually much slower than this?
Although now with the headwind back for the foreseeable, might I not be as unfit as I feared?
The climb up past the ruins of White Ladies was enlivened by a lad HMAHMW going past on one of those modern MTBs with big wheels and a tiny front chainring. There was a suspicious built in area around the BB. To be fair to him, he also seemed to be putting some effort in so I got on his back wheel and he paced me right the way to the top. Luckily, he went left and I went right at Boscobel. If it wasn’t assisted, well played!
On the home straight now, I tried to keep the speed up as high as I could. Some Dickwad in a VW van with GAS at the end of a private number plate pulled a stupidly close pass. Better hope I don’t see it parked in the car park later, bud!
Gurning my way up the final bit of a climb and I stopped the Garmin. Every year I try to do this ride at above a certain average speed. If I manage it, I’m not old yet. Imagine my surprise when I saw I had beaten it by some way! I had definitely flagged at the end so, room for improvement.
On the first ride of the year, mission accomplished!
Heading along the first road my decision to go for shorts seemed the correct one, it really was quite warm. Despite expectations of a slow, panting ride, it felt like I was going along ok despite the headwind. I slowly caught a guy and chatted for a while. He was out towards the end of a longer ride and peeled left as I went right towards the little lane that has tried to kill me a few times recently. It got closest to achieving its goal last winter with a sheet of ice. More recent attempts upon my person have been based on mud, running water, piles of dried mud and of course, potholes. It went with everything except dried mud today although heaped debris on the centre line took the place of it.
Through Tong and suddenly traffic everywhere! My usual peaceful back lanes completely taken over by endless cars. I can only assume the M54 was closed although I could hear traffic on it so, not sure?
As I approached Cosford, I had a look at the Garmin. Not yet an hour in? What? Usually much slower than this?
Although now with the headwind back for the foreseeable, might I not be as unfit as I feared?
The climb up past the ruins of White Ladies was enlivened by a lad HMAHMW going past on one of those modern MTBs with big wheels and a tiny front chainring. There was a suspicious built in area around the BB. To be fair to him, he also seemed to be putting some effort in so I got on his back wheel and he paced me right the way to the top. Luckily, he went left and I went right at Boscobel. If it wasn’t assisted, well played!
On the home straight now, I tried to keep the speed up as high as I could. Some Dickwad in a VW van with GAS at the end of a private number plate pulled a stupidly close pass. Better hope I don’t see it parked in the car park later, bud!
Gurning my way up the final bit of a climb and I stopped the Garmin. Every year I try to do this ride at above a certain average speed. If I manage it, I’m not old yet. Imagine my surprise when I saw I had beaten it by some way! I had definitely flagged at the end so, room for improvement.
On the first ride of the year, mission accomplished!
