As you know, I’m not great at mornings or breakfast so I was not expecting great things! I started the day with a homemade smoothie (banana, peanut butter and almond milk) and set off. It was really great to be out so early. It was cool, quiet and I experienced an unbearable smugness about the fact I was up and exercising when most people were probably still asleep!
Sleepy village
The ride was good. I am now quite used to the bike and enjoy riding it. There are a few steep hills on the route and I did rather mess up one of them. My foot slipped off the peddle and I now have a huge bruise for my trouble. My bike is rather hard to get going if you stop before or during a hill so this was a bit of a setback. My average speed was only 12.5mph, but I am not that disappointed about this. I’m exceptionally pleased that I got up early and did the ride and I know that I need to improve on the hills so that’s not an issue.
I finished the ride in 10 minutes less than when Ant and I did the same route at the end of April which I am very impressed by.
Not that quick
After the ride the family set off to the Keep Festival in Northampton which is a cycling festival on the Racecourse. I had a great time helping out and was responsible for helping to power a peddle powered cinema and for making smoothies on an adapted bike. I suspect I did another 5 – 10 miles statically at the festival and by the end of Saturday my legs were understandably weary!
That said on Sunday morning I was up and at it again.
The day started at 8am again, this time with a blueberry, orange juice and yogurt smoothie. I set out on a new route. I knew it was unlikely to take the full 2.5 hours I was supposed to do but I decided that seeings as I had spent an extra hour cycling statically on Saturday it would be fine.
Again, it was a great route. I was doing well and was particularly happy to find myself zipping along at 21mph on the flat at one point.
I knew that the route I was taking had a particularly terrifying hill on it but when I reached it it was even worse than I expected. I came whizzing down the road approaching it but was so shocked / frightened / overwhelmed when I saw what I was about to go up that I did the worse possible thing I could do. I stopped. This was, of course, a huge error as I absolutely could not get the bike going again. Try as I might it was not going anywhere. At this point 4 rather professional looking chaps on posh bikes zoomed by me and straight up the horror hill. I was pleased to see however that even they appeared to struggle slightly at the top. I decided to just push the bike up. It isn’t ideal but I was tired and knew there was pretty much no chance I was getting up it on a bike.
Horror hills, again....
As I was pushing a very sweet man rode past me (not in lycra) coming down the hill. He chirped happily at me “I’m glad I’m coming down the hill!” What he clearly didn’t realise was that he wasn’t just descending a really steep hill. He was, in fact, entering a valley which had as steep an ascent on the other side. He noticed this quite quickly. I know this because as heard a pained “Oh God no!!” from him a few moments later. I do not know whether he made it up or not…..
I was overall really happy with the ride again. I do not care that I didn’t get up the hill as I know what I did wrong and can rectify this. Also, I do know that there is quite a large chance I will end up walking up some of the London 100 hills anyway.
I completed the ride in a 13.6mph average which I am really happy with. My legs were tired after Saturday but I still managed a reasonable time and more importantly, I got out of bed despite this and road my bike 23 miles.
All in all I am really pleased with the weekend’s efforts. Go me!
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