Forgot to put yesterdays ride up Well my road bike is off on it’s way to the Pyrenees but it’s another week before I fly out so it’s on the mountain bike for the next few days. The annoying part about this is my saddle has also gone so I’m using a spare one I have and it’s not as comfortable so it’ll be short rides for the rest of the week.
So this is the last long distance ride I can do as my bike will be packed up and sent to France next week in prep for the Pyrenees ride. This was a long tough ride specifically with lots of hills in it which is why I’ve clocked up the most elevation in one ride goal. Over 6000 feet of climbing and not really helped by the fact I’ve managed to buckle my rear wheel which was rubbing my bike frame for the last 40 odd miles right when I have to send my bike off I don’t have time to have it fixed so lets hope the ride mechanics can help out when I get to France myself.
So the greatest hill climb in Scotland goes like this, 4 hours to drive there, 2 hours to cycle it and 4 hours to drive back home again. All this would be worth it on a nice day, but today was not a nice day. It was pissing it down and windy as hell made worse by it being a head wind cycling up the hill. This made the ride hard core to ride up It starts off easy enough but gets steeper the closer you get to the summit and it’s there you get sections at 20% and switchbacks right at the top :-0 I did check the weather yesterday and it said cloudy but dry, but what do humans know about predicting the weather I think on a nice day this would be a spectacular ride but today it was more of a chore and one I may have not bothered doing if it weren’t for the fact I’ve driven 250 miles to get there. Anyway I’m glad I did it I have bragging rights now and sods law dictated the weather cleared up just in time for my decent which allowed me to get some decent pictures
So today’s ride was the clubs 100 km ride which given the crap weather I’m surprised anyone turned up for. In the end 9 of us ended up doing the ride and it was actually a good ride. On the start of the ride it was raining but after about 30 mins it stopped with only a few spits and spots of rain here and there. Thankfully it wasn’t windy like yesterday so the ride was fine by me. We stopped at Auchterarder of a bite to eat and then headed to Dunning and over the hill back to Yetts. After that it was fairly easy going with me doing a little more millage to get back home again, all in all 71 miles clocked up at a good pace of 16 mph
Went for the slightly slower group club ride this morning due to the shitty weather of high winds and rain. Thankfully the rain stopped not long after the start of the ride and we had a tail wind on the loop back.
Cycled back to the flat to check for mail rather then go by car, although car would have been the better choice as it was pissing it down and windy to boot
Second ride of the day but this one was to the new club house to pick up the club cycling kit, or some of it as I’ve had to order the rest of it since it wasn’t in stock. Then a leisurely ride home going via Kelty just to bump up the mileage a bit.
This mornings club fast run and suffice to say they went mental up knockhill blowing me out but I wasn’t the last one up to the top
So Thursday night is the fast club ride, and it is fast! any faster and I would be cycling on my own. I was just able to keep up with them but mostly from the back of the group. Given the time of the ride I doubt they will run it much longer with the nights drawing in but I’ll keep doing this one until they stop, next ride is the 08:30 Saturday fast ride, so we’ll see how I get on there
So I went on the Sunday fast club run today and it was more to my pace. Not too fast but fast enough to give me a workout
So after this mornings club ride I went home and had lunch then went back out again to get a faster run and a bit more of a work out
Decided to check out the local cycling club so joined one of their morning rides I’ll do another one tomorrow but that one should be a faster longer ride than today’s.