Chilly 14°C tops. Light N breeze.
Paddy Wagon: a swift ride but there is probably some selection bias in that claim. I tend to ride this bike when winds are light, and light winds are conducive to fast rides. Today the overall average was 23.6kph, that’s only 1 kph below my best in August.
25°C strong sun & easterly 10 mph
My legs said ‘go’, so I went. Average speed started out low at 20kph into the headwind then the hills. Horrocks Hill was first (Bannister Lane) and then you drop back down to Coppul. Then it’s Up to Irvington for the café stop. Coming back I took the back descent to Parbold.
What an exceptional day. Perfect weather (25°C full sun). The bike was good but lacked the lower gears. If this Campa transmission should play up, I may put the Tiagra 10spd on instead.
22°C, light W 10mph, strong sun.
I chose this route partly to find the actual gradient. My GPS Speedo does report gradients (along with other stuff like temperature). After riding up this hill for 15 years, I finally know its gradient.
I’ve had an excellent cycling week. As you can see, my weekly target was met.
The first number is my record and the second – my target. 162.4 km is set because it’s 100 miles.
22°C strong sun & light NW breeze.
Brighter sun had more heat in it but the air was 8 degrees lower. It felt just as hot to me unless in shadow. Anyway,. I’ve edged the average speed up a bit, 24.7 from 24.5kph.
26°C, 3/5 cloud, light SE breeze.
No wind so I got the fixie out again. This was nearly 1km/h faster than yesterday, so that’s very encouraging. I had another road rage from a driver of a white van. He blasted the horn a few times & shouted something incoherent on entering Croston. I have no idea what that was about.
22°C, sun & clouded over later, no wind & dry.
Rode another 23.7kph on the fixie. This matches last week’s ride but was much further. I caught up with a nice little group of roadies; a guy, his daughter & friend. They had nice modern road bikes in contrast to my 15 year old steel single speed.
He told me they were regulars at Manchester Velo and did National events too. I asked about their training while we were talking about Garmin data. They both had cadence & power meters but that was really only for the use of their coach. They typically did 10 hours a week and about 6k per year.
I was dead impressed which drove me on to set a pace after my cafe stop. I’m quite inspired actually.
21°C, sunny with light W.
August roads are very quiet until home time. This is the best time of year to ride; warm, dry & empty roads. I had the energy to ride up Bannister Hill which was comfortable. However; later on, bad behaviour from divers was encountered. Firstly with repeated horn blasts from one and later a dangerous close pass on a bridge from another.
18°C, sunny with a cool westerly.
Kona Paddy Wagon the fixie went well today. So much so that I wasn’t sure the Speedo was callibrated correctly. Anyway, the average speed here is correct and is 2 km/hr more that the last best ride. It didn’t even feel like that much effort really.
28-32°C, light breeze and a few spots of rain on the return leg.
Not far but look how steep it is.
I’m not well, but I went anyway. The rude worked well but I’ll probably pay for it tomorrow.
28°C (35° feels like), light NE, V strong sun.
A similar route to last year’s but with a better return route. It’s less hot and a refreshing North East breeze which helped significantly. Looking back, I think I was possibly ill with a bug last summer.
The photo was taken by two Slovakian guys who I then met later at the Repisol garage. They suggested a better route back for me which made a huge difference. The lanes were quiet and narrow.
Anyway, this was a successful ride which salved the debacle from last year. Maybe next time – Sa Colabra.
Recovering now but my throat is sore. Seriously, I haven’t caught something again??
