Whilst I haven’t been blogging about it so much in the last week or so, I have still been out clocking up the miles on my bike. Last week I did two rides, one with Malcolm that was just under 100km followed by another 75km on Saturday with Brian and Warren. To be honest, since the Puncheur I’ve been struggling a bit – my legs hurt, I have been coughing up a bit of phlegm and I’ve been feeling generally cold out on the bike. In fact it’s fair to say I was basically freezing on my ride with Malcolm, so much so, that I couldn’t face taking any pictures. So the photos in this post are from my ride last Saturday with Warren and Brian. Interestingly both rides saw us do just over 1,000m of climbing on each ride – yet the Saturday ride was “only” 75km – so it had a good rate of climbing. It was probably a bit unfair on Brian who is only on his early build up for riding this year but he did do well. Warren has been pounding away on his turbo as always, so his legs are pretty strong already. I still can’t really stomach my turbo – so I’d rather get out on the road.
I have a mental target for the year of averaging 500km per month – so 6,000km for the year. On Saturday I passed through the 1,000km point …. only 19 days behind schedule (it’s a few more now as I haven’t ridden since then). In theory I should be at 1,500km by the end of the month but it will be more like 1100-1200, which is fine. January, February and November and December are the toughest months to get mileage in the UK, so to only be a few hundred km behind the target at this point feels pretty good. It’s been nice to do some more circa 100km rides – 3 in the last month and they certainly help get the total ticking over. It’s also been good to do more rides with over 1,000m of climbing – again three in the last month. So there is plenty to be pleased about.
Fingers crossed we may have almost turned the corner with the weather- there’s been sunshine and a little bit of warmth and the higher temperatures are very welcome indeed. To help to drive the temperatures up – I bought a replacement Gore Phantom (
http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/clothing/jackets/product/phantom-jacket-28350/), which is simply the best piece of cycling kit I’ve owned. Sadly I lost a sleeve on the last one and the new one arrived in the post, less than an hour after I’d left on my ride with Malcolm (and I really could have used it). On Saturday it got it’s first outing and in 3-4 degrees when I left home, I instantly felt toasty and was a lot more physically comfortable on the bike again. I’m hoping buying it might be the cycling equivalent of leaving the house with an umbrella – in that I probably won’t need it now until the end of the year…. To be honest, now that I have it – I don’t mind either way. It’s very nice to be warm again!
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