Since BB200 I've really struggled to get back on any of my bikes. Nothing was wrong, I just didn't feel like it.
Days have passed in a flurry of work commitments. Not unpleasant ones. In a job where we're carrying out important support for Government sponsored environmental developments, it's incredibly satisfying to make my love of organising other people (engineers) into a deliverance of something meaningful.
However, I've worked some incredibly long hours and the day came where I needed to go for a bike ride.
Instead of going for a ride this week I have:
- been to the weights room twice
- run once
- walked a lot
- cleaned bikes
- rebuilt wheels
- serviced bikes
- changed tyres
- fixed up a paint job
- re-tensioned someone else's wheel
- Re-packed my big Carradice full of wintry clothing (full waterproofs etc).
Finally, I ran out of excuses this morning.
We summonsed the courage to be out of the house at 12:00, stomachs partially full with second breakfast. The ride was labelled, ride where you feel like.
We headed up hill through Commonside and started to battle against the wind. At Lodge Moor we pulled into a bus stop after only 40 or so minutes of riding and put on waterproofs as the rainbow over the Rivelin Valley got more and more vibrant, the closer the rain shower came. We passed the Sportsman where kids played footie on the field, their parents corralled outside the pitch by a dirty rope and a selection of pub-goers stood socially distant from a bearded old man who commanded some kind of an audience.
We turned off towards the climb past Wyming Brook farm, a brief tail wind blowing us onto Soughley Lane where we both felt like giving it a poke, accelerated by the briefest of tail-winds. The problem is, there's a 180 to this road so at first the acceleration was cut by the cross wind then after the hairpin, it was back into full-face wind and I just caught upto he-who-goes-off-too-quick before the final bend. I was committed now and I huffed my way to the top. I'd reached into bits of my lungs I haven't opened up for a while and it felt good and sketchy all at the same time. It was hard but it's no wonder, I was only 12 seconds off my same time on a nice sunny day riding the Twiglet, with Chris Featherstone hauling up front.
Past the Lama farm, we decided on Chips and tea at the Norfolk Arms take away but there was a queue so we tried Dore then Totley but everywhere was shut so we disappeared into the woods instead, headed for the Graves Cafe and sat in a little pod shelter with tarpaulin over us and waited for two cheese toasties. They were heavenly and the pod was like camping and there was Nutella cake so everything was well with the world.
I'd had enough poking into the wind so we conceded to head home, stopping at Waitrose to pick up dinner. I must've been looking rough because a lad carrying a can of Strongbow at 2:30pm stopped to check I was OK, slumped in the remaining dry corner behind our bikes as the rain poured down outside my temporary perspex shelter.
After my Waitrose sit down, I must have recovered some legs and really enjoyed the climb up to the house. I took in a detour because I hate riding through the village with all the parked cars and junctions and pedestrians and taxis in the bike lane so I went to pray to Buddah then dropped into home from above.
It was the perfect length ride for a wet, windy day and a day when I just wanted a ride that felt nice and nothing went wrong. The bike worked, I worked (hard) and I'm inspired again - just in time for being restricted to my own back yard for the next month.
Just in time to start my Highland Trail training in earnest.
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