On Good Friday I had planned to test more of the Dawn to Dusk route with a 70 miler. However time was limited by me being the only "responsible" adult at home so I set off to do one of my favourite routes. I'm not sure when I did this last but I remember doing it on New Year's Day 2014 with Darren, a man I thought was a cycling buddy for life but alas it didn't work out that way. This route has everything that's good about cycling in Northants, with rolling hills, quiet roads and pretty villages. If I could only do one route for the rest of my life it's this one.
On Saturday I went out. I know I did. I got home just in time to discover Joe didn't have a driving lesson after all! I have no record of where I went or what I did. All I know is I successfully got home for 10:30. Hmmm...epic tracking fail followed by MAMIL memory loss!
Sunday! I know what I did Sunday! I set out to ride as fast as I could for a couple of hours and it wasn't bad at all. A lovely spin in fact and the start of the lovely weather we've enjoyed for most of the week.
Tuesday was interesting indeed! I set off without a plan. Somehow that non plan got me to Pitsford Sailing Club in time to see Sam start his training course. Then I set off in search of hills! Spratton, Holdenby, Ravensthorpe, Coton, Naseby, East Farndon, Griffin Road Braybrooke and Harrington. All beastly lumps for round here and great fun in that sado masochistic way us cyclists enjoy!
On Thursday I decided to take the 29r out for a spin, no plans again just up to weekly woods and see where it took me. Well I ended up coming back to Rushton and then doing a bit of geocaching. If you don't know what that is I must warn you look away now! Once the geocaching bug hits you won't be able to stop!
Here's a cache on the hill to Orton
View from the cache
There's a brilliant cache here
This is a geo coin...they move from cache to cache
Off the beaten track for this cache
You have to climb the tree to get the tree frog cache!
Left by a fellow C&D cyclist
Some of them are tiny!
On Friday I decided on the 29r again and more geocaching than riding using local caches and then the Brampton Valley Way to Market Harborough which is stuffed with caches! Four hours to do twentyish miles with scrambles up slopes and tree climbing and bramble bashing to find the little containers of treasure!
Finally Saturday and I went out for a Saturday club ride. It went a bit wrong as Phil, Steve and I got dropped by the bunch and then they disappeared. I thought they'd follow rule #1 and wait for us on Middleton Hill but no...then surely the beast that is Rocky. Again no sign of them. Steve was peeling off at Gretton for a few more miles so Phil and I plodded back to Pipewell. We were very disappointed that we'd been abandoned and many rude words were said. Then Glynn appeared behind us. Then the rest of the club...they'd gone the wrong way! Ha serves them right for not stopping sooner because I knew the route. All was however forgiven.
There's a bigger problem though. I'm slower than ever. I can't work it out. I think I might be stressing about Dawn to Dusk but suddenly I'm back to 13mph averages. I've never been the quickest but that's really poor even for me. I need to look at the training plan and figure out what I can do to sort this out. I do this for enjoyment, being a hindrance to others is not my idea of fun!
Happier pedaling required!
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