Today's planned to be easy on effort- keeping the heart rate in recovery or aerobic zone, no slipping into tempo tri pace. It was also planned early to avoid the worst of the weather. Forecast was cloudy at mid day but by 3pm there would be heavy rain.
Going up the hill out of Sheffield (a57) was painfully slow - poor TSK - so I promised him we would make it a 50 mile ride to make up for the snail's pace as more than one mamil passed us with a cheery 'hello'.
After a brief stop in Bamford with a wave at Richard Hakes we made the decision to turn left towards Haddon instead of taking the exposed route through Tintwistle. I think we had both been alarmed by how cold our skin temperature was during our pee stop in Bamford. Suddenly getting out of the wind will do that for you.
We flew through Hathersage, formulating a plan to stop for cake and tea in Calver. TSk suggested we cut it short and head home after coffee but, thinking he was saying it for my benefit, I reinforced just how much fun I was having and I wanted to continue. Refreshed by Parkin we continued to Bakewell where, at 12 o'clock it started to drizzle.
Again TSK asked if I wanted to drop the planned circuit of Chatsworth but I said I had another waterproof and would be fine. Then we got on the back of a train of mamils and made some progress on the headwindy main road for a short time before turning off into the Chatsworth estate. The ride through Chatsworth and Baslow was, in general, really nice without all the motorists blocking the roads - as tends to happen when it is warm and sunny. Even the climb up to Owler Bar started off pleasant, although it looked like I was on for a personal worst and the rain was getting more earnest, I was still really impressed with my new windproof which was keeping the rain at bay no problem. I gave up on the heart rate control here. I was on my way home so no need to worry about blowing-up. Eventually my heart rate settled for 2.8 anyway.
I did think that I would stop and put on my coat and hat before the descent but as we reached the summit it was full-on snowing the shit out of itself and there was nowhere that I particularly wanted to stop. In theory I was going to get down off the hill as quickly as fucking possible.
I enjoyed the first bit of the descent because it's fast with great sight lines and then I started to just be glad I had selected my helmet with a peak on it this morning as I tilted my head so that the visor kept the huge chunks of snow out of my eyes. By the time I reached the Dyson factory my feet were soaked through and as soon as I got to the run out at the bottom of the steep section I stopped to put my coat on. I couldn't get the zipper to do up and left TSK freezing at the traffic lights waiting for me. The best of me wishes he'd just gone ahead and left me. A big part of me was glad he waited but at this point I didn't realise he was worse off than I.
As he gradually dropped back I finally found the flyover the perfect stopping place out of the rain and wind to get his second coat on. I led up the last hill to get the heat and kettle on and wrap myself in fleece so I could help him. A good dose of tannin has mostly fixed us but for an easy ride, hypothermia really shouldn't have been part of the plan.
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