Long Lincoln.

A few weeks rest after (what felt like epic) the Festive 500, a 200k and Bearbones all in a row, I was ready to get out for another long ride this week.

I picked Lincoln because it was a flat ride for a windy day and decided to throw in some more miles with a ride out to the start of the 100 mile route and a ride home too making for a 200k day.

I managed to get out of the house about 9:30 so not early but not late either and rode out the pretty way.  Well, up Gleadless hill on a Saturday morning is very quiet.  I then rode along White Lane, into the edge of Derbyshire briefly before joining the bridleway out to Eckington and then a few back lanes to Barlborough from where I joined the route proper.

Snacking started with an M&S sachet of nuts, raisins and caramel I've been carrying around for a while.  A group of horse riders waited at a junction for me to pass and we exchanged pleasantries - me as I tried to squeeze the last raisin out of a sachet.  I tucked the wrapper away and proceeded through Colne.  By Poultney I was ready for lunch.

The cafe was nicer on the inside than the yellow caravan-style box portrayed on the outside but I was slightly nervous of the menu and "table service".  I was warned that bacon would take 20 minutes to prepare so ordered soup and tuna mayo sandwich instead.  To be fair, I was fed and on my way pretty quickly, picking up a cherry scone to take with me and filling up my water bottle.

With the tail wind behind, it wasn't long before I was at Rufford Park where a bunch of children and their parents booed me for not riding through the 18 inch deep ford.  Nice.

I just kept riding and riding.  To be fair, I noticed nowhere else to stop all the way along, nowhere that I could be bothered to stop anyway.  I just kept riding, all the way into Lincoln.   Even Newark passed in a blaze of cars, vans and pedestrian crossings.

At the lights in Lincoln where you decide, city or bypass, I took the bypass.  I couldn't be arsed with city traffic, not any more.  I rolled along the bike path past the McDonalds, Costa coffee, Homestores, B&Q, Halfords, Next.  All the great out-of-town stuff.  Found myself getting stopped at every single set of lights along the way.  Just as I had got bored of it, the malls ran out and I found myself at the Northern end of my route with a choice between bobbing into town (or the pub across the road) or McDonalds.

I didn't really want much food but a bag of chips, a coffee and a water wouldn't have gone amiss.  I went into Maccy D's and walked straight out again.  It was so busy - no chance of getting served for ages.  After unlocking my bike, I decided I would just use the loo and then get going.  I didn't need food right?

I locked up again, went back in, used the toilets and filled up my water bottle with luke warm water from the tap, figuring that it was probably going to be reasonably safe to drink given that McDonalds was the kind of place where food is eaten with hands.  I came back out and stood around eating my scone to see if it got a little quieter (it didn't) so turned tail and started riding.

I missed the turning for the bike path along the river AGAIN so attempted turned off onto the path we used last time except I got clever and tried to approach it a different way.  Sadly, I ended up riding on the second tee of Lincoln golf course and swearing a lot.  Oh well.

Sanity restored on the path, I settled in to an hour of headwind riding on the Fens.

It really wasn't as bad as it should have been.  The wind seemed to drop and the bike lane offered a wonderful array of shelter - trees, embankments, railway bridges.  It was incredibly satisfying but long though.  I was an hour later on the path than in December but it was so much lighter.  I left my illuminations off until I reached the end, around 4pm and then, joining the road, turned them on again.

The low battery warning on my Garmin flickered so I left it alone as much as possible through the next few miles, desperately hoping it would last me until I was near somewhere I recognised so that I wouldn't have to get my phone out to navigate.

Again the villages rolled by mile after mile without me really noticing.  I was starting to get hungry again and I began to make my way through my remaining snacks though none were really taking up the hole that was left from the hankering for chips.  The demise of the great british pub was evident.

I got quite excited when I remembered I had packed some jerky and munched that for a few miles.  The pangs were replaced by those for sweet food so I scoffed a mars bar I'd had kicking around in my Carradice all week after I bought it on a freak trip to Sainsburys last Sunday evening.

That lasted about 30 minutes until I finally lost the Garmin completely at the junction for Clumber Park.  Thankfully, I'm pretty aware of where I am once I'm at Clumber so I descended into the relative darkness, away from the main road, thoughtfully noticing the position of the moon behind my left shoulder to orient myself as to the direction of West if I needed it later.

I love the ride through Clumber in the dark - completely traffic free due to a lack of through-routes and feeling like lord of the  manner.  I passed some sneaky campers out in the dark woods and wiggled around past the stone bridge and down the lanes we'd negotiated back in December - now knowing exactly where I was going.

I spat out the other end and made my familiar way through the countryside, past the lake and up to Cresswell Crags.  For fear of getting lost, I joined the A616 over taking the lanes and enjoyed 30 minutes of main road riding, though decidedly traffic free.  I was passed by one or two trucks and a few boy racers but nothing bad happened.

Finally I reached Harthill, which would have been my stopping point on the hundred miler but now I just needed to get home.  I was getting a bit peckish but I really fancied dinner with my husband and reckoned I had eaten enough to see me back.  So I rode on past the Golden Ball pub, newly refurbished and on to Kiveton Park where I bravely passed the chippy and Todwick where I tried to ignore the shops and climbed up to the A57 bike lane which took me all the way out to the Motorway crossing on pristine tarmac.  I text'd TSK to let him know where I was and kept going, through Aston, down the Fence Hill at 25 mph, bunny hopping over potholes to keep my speed up, blaring around the roundabout because my steering's better than a motor car's and straight up the climb into Sheffield without diverting onto minor roads because there was so little traffic on the major road that the back-route would have been more inconvenient.

Finally, just the wobble up through the city out to my house to fall through the door, almost 12 hours since I left in the morning.

The wind made it quite a slow ride - since I went easy in the morning to save myself for the evening winds.  The fact that they weren't as bad as anticipated, then, didn't speed me up because I was hungry for most of the last portion.  Reassuringly, if I'd been on part of a longer ride I would have eaten more instead of holding off getting home for dinner.  Still, it was done and at least got me 50% closer to my over-stretched weekly target.

I wasn't going to have next week as a rest but now you mention it... I might.