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.
18°C, grey & calm
A day out in Manchester means an opportunity to swim in the best pool around. 50m at the right temperature. I’ve been ill with a throat infection for a week so didn’t plan to push too hard. However, once warmed up, I was fine so I did 34 lengths (50m each, a mile).
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??
28°C, light NE, zero cloud.
I set off in the afternoon with 3 litres of water and no clear idea of a destination. A track peels off the road to Formentor so I took it. The path was indistinct and very uneven. Rocks here are sharp broken limestone and in places hidden by coarse grass. It led to a dried up stream and then onto this delightful little pebbly beach.
When I got there, there was a group of muscle men about to leave so I had the place to myself. Then a lovely young french couple from Brittany arrived by the same route as mine. She asked me about the route as they had no map – they’d followed me down.
Then they changed to swim. Such a good idea so I did the same. What an enchanted beautiful place.
Micycle 