On Monday morning Warren and I met up at our usual spot at 10am for a short and brisk ride through the countryside. We both needed to be home ideally by about 12.30 and I think it was this thought that encouraged a brisk pace. As usual I'd been slightly late leaving the house so had ridden pretty hard to try not to be too late. I did the 16.5km to the meeting in point in 34 minutes and my Cyclemeter App (http://www.abvio.com/cyclemeter/) on my iPhone said I'd averaged 28.9kmh getting there – which is about as fast an average as I've ever managed. My legs had felt pretty good from the off and on the main steep climb on the way to the meeting point I'd got up it pretty quickly (for me anyway).
We rode to Hever and turned left up Uckfield Lane which is a 2km fairly gradual climb and we averaged about 25kmh on this stretch, which felt good for a climb (even a relatively easy one). This set the tempo and we looped around to Penhurst, climbing the hill on the way to Leigh and then further on to Hildenborough (by the train station) crossed the A21 and rode back to Chiddingstone via Charcott. I'd checked my computer again at about the 40km mark and we were still managing to average 28.9kmh including the hills – so we were doing well and my legs were on good form. It was still the same average speed when Warren and I went our separate ways at Chiddingstone (at the 50km mark).
Unfortunately I managed to drop that average down to 28.45kmh on the last 16km home which is disappointing but still a good fast ride. According to my computer I dropped to 16kmh for the kilometer that included climbing the steep hill into Fordcombe and that was probably what did it. However this was the fastest ride I've done with someone else so far and a great way to start the week.
Warren and I had ridden well together – I'd not been dropped particularly on any of the hills and hadn't fallen behind until the last few kms when I struggled a bit into a headwind and lost 50 or so metres until we regrouped. My legs had felt pretty good. Normally I do struggle to keep up on the hills but today I did better than I had for sometime and managed to ride up them all at a good pace.
Stats for the day: Distance 65.5 km, Average Speed: 28.45kmh Climbing: 750m, Distance for the year: 3,404km.
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