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RR - First Audax of the new season, last ride in shorts for the year
Having failed to reach my target of 3000km worth of rides in the recently
ended 2006/7 I decided to get off to a flying start to the new season by completing a 100km BP ride on the first free Sunday in the new season. As there's no local calendered events in the early part of the season I did a DIY permanent from Leeds to Stamford Bridge and back. The weather was bright and relatively warm as predicted and I set off in shorts with some tracjksuit bottoms packed in my saddle bag for good measure. The ride out to Wetherby was a tad slower than normal because I've missed quite a few opportunities to ride because of other commitments and a string of colds but I settle into a steady pace on the back roads to York. Bright sunshine and no wind made for a very pleasant experience and despite my feelings of being out of condition I overtook a few weekend cyclists. At Rufforth I spotted a few light aircraft through the boundary hedge to the airfield and was pleasntly surprised to see an autogyro in flight - my first. Passing through York and onto Stamford Bridge was uneventful and I stopped for a short break and obtained a proof of passage before turning back for Leeds. I made exactly the same mistake as the last time i rode to Stamford Bridge. Reacheing the place feeling fresh and redy for anything I didn't eat enough for the return leg and once or twice I verged on bonking but jelly babies came to my rescue. On the York - Wetherby leg I was astounded by the antics of a lad on a BMX bike. It took me a while to catch up with him and despite his knees in his armpits riding position was nonchalantly maintaining 13mph or thereabout when I overtook him. A mile or so on I look over my shoulder and he was there pedalling frantically at around 17mph before he upped the pace and pulled ahead and turned off at his village but not before giving me a cheery wave. I was gob smacked. The final leg between Wetherby and Leeds is a little bit of a slog when one is tired but I pressed on and finished the ride, over distance at 70 miles - well past the metric ton specced on my entry form and well within time for the BR pace of 15km/hr. I suppose I ought to recalibrate my bike computer to metric units but I'm comfortable with the melange of units I use to gauge the pace and personal performance on a ride. I managed to get a hint of a cyclists tan through the backs of my croched track mitts though by the end of the ride riding in shorts was marginal when I cam to personal comfort. All in all a nice day out and I'm all set for next weekend's DIY perm to Darlington. Must get around to becoming less porky and tackling more 200s this season. It'd be nice to get the 2000km Brevet award for ten rides instead of twenty :-) |
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