17°C, light W, sunny.
That felt easy after yesterday’s slog. This route has several long straights where you can settle into a pace with effort. Below a threshold, it felt easy but step up and muscle burn builds up.
August sun
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Category Archives: Travel
Astbury hilly
17°C, light SW, bright & dry.
Rode the Arrow round the back of Astbury Monument for some hill intervals. This bike is showing its age (26 years) but the repairs it needs are minor (a new chain and some creaking sounds).
500th mile
17°C, white cloud, light SW, dry.
Rode the 500th mile on the Zing. That went by quickly. Another 500 and it will need a new chain.
This is only the 2nd ride this week with other exercise taken up with 3 days walking. The total calorie count is, therefore – high. I’m still not losing any weight though.
DofE 6: Princethorpe practice.
22°C, full sun, light W.
Arrived at a campsite the night before. Even for a Sunday, the motorways were relatively quiet. I didn’t rush down and got 71mpg. This is a 1 day practice with no overnight camping, COVID conditions apply.
Day 1: a long route for bronze training is the conclusion. 18km meant that we had less time for training skills. Good for endurance but not mapreading techniques. It got worse later as rain set in. Actually, the boys group sped up then while feeling the pressure to get back to base on-time.
Day 2: this the, a group of girls who were a delight to work with. They were keen to learn and had good stamina for the somewhat shortened route. It t was about 15% shorter which helped tremendously. The weather held out after a grey but dry morning.
Day 3: another group of lads. These were less boisterous and more serious. They had a wide range of previous experience from none to extensive international trekking. They’ll have no trouble with their qualifying expedition in September.
End: the only disappointment was cloudy nights stopped me seeing Comet Neowise
Zing: 27.
16°C, W wind, strong still. Drying out.
Arrow: cafe visit
16°C, strong W, gusts 40mph+, dry though.
The cafes are reopening. I went to my favourite, the Velo Café at Twin Lakes just as they were closing up. John let me in for an espresso.
Grrr, bark, woof!
15°C, strong WSW but mostly dry. 40+mph gusts. Rather grey.
What a miserable morning! We’ve has 3 days of rain which left me with so much pent up energy in my legs. This ride cleared it.
The Speedo didn’t wake up today. It has a remote sensor on the fork that sends a signal to the unit via a radio link, it’s wireless. I suspect that the sensor’s battery has failed.
Warm under leaden sky.
20°C, brisk S, dry humid and dull.
A warm humid air dominates today’s mood. Warm and heavy, the rain was an empty threat. He gears are still indexing badly.
‘Cross and 3 punctures.
15°C, light S wind, dry but for rain in the last mile.
A ride ruined. I stopped after 2 miles with a soft tyre to blow it back up. 2 miles later, it had lost pressure as I got onto the gravel section. The inner tubes are slime filled which seals punctures but I was thought the valve was bunged up. It certainly looked green (the colour of the slime).
Eventually, I took the tube out and found 2 needle-like thorns. Okay, 1 more try… No better. Being 10 miles from home, I put a normal tube in. Meanwhile the clouds loomed dark.
I’m now taking a break at home because I’m having troubles finding the holes to patch.
Thunder
20°C, dry spell between thunder clouds
Dodging showers today, in fact there were deep rumbles inland from thunderstorms that were to miss us. They passed going north but further inland. Hardly any rain fell here – I could have gone out on the Zing.
I don’t know what’s going on with this speedo, it gets stuck sometimes on a high speed and the distance is then wrong. As you can see, it’s parked going 36mph!
Micycle 