It’s a slightly overcast day with a bit of wind but its warm again so decided to go for a ride. Wasn’t looking to go hard, just to enjoy the ride, thankfully I got home in time before the heavens opened up but I did do a decent enough time and speed
So today’s goal was to ride hard but to kill myself going up hill back to home. There is a small hill from Inverkeithing to Crossgates, about 3 miles long with an avg gradient of 2% so not very steep but a good place to do a small hill section and to go hard. So the idea is to ride at threshold for those 3 miles and see what I can do. Ultimately I did quite well I got a PB for the distance and I avg 287 watts, there is a small KOM on this segment on Garmin and I hold second place now so happy with that Not sure I can get first place as I would have to shave a minute off my time but I’ll keep trying
So this years Evans Ride it event in Lanark was a wet windy affair, I did sign up for the long route but due to the bad weather conditions I took the medium route instead. Happy with the time and effort I did, this years ride was 20 min faster than last years lets hope one year I get decent weather and can do the long route like I did back in 2016, its a great ride but requires good weather as in bad weather it can turn into a horrendous ride. Also quite chuffed that no one over took me this year and those that did I soon passed further up the road
OMG! well I got my road bike back and tonight’s exercise was to try and maintain 250 watts for the 25 mile loop. Well I came damn close but buried myself doing it! I don’t think my lungs know what hit them, I was breathing hard for the hour and 15 mins of the run with an avg heart rate of 161 bpm. All of this had the knock on effect of giving me an avg speed of 19.1 mph which is pretty fantastic for me
Ride 21/07/2018
Gah! headwind all the way from Kirkcaldy to Inverkeithing makes this a hard ride and 3 mins slower than yesterdBit of a dull windy day so decided to do a smallish ride around Fife and Kinross. Headed towards Kirkcaldy and then north to Loch Leven, I rode some of the cycle path that goes around the loch because I was on the mountain bike again. I wouldn’t do that on the road bike the path is rough and a bit overgrown at the moment but something worth doing the full length one day. I’m surprised this ride has over 3000 feet of elevation in it but looking at the elevation graph it was a bumpy ride overall, anyway next Sat is the Evans Cycles Ride it event in Lanark so hope I can get my road bike back before then.ay
Gah! headwind all the way from Kirkcaldy to Inverkeithing makes this a hard ride and 3 mins slower than yesterday
Crossgates loop on the mountain bike, on the road bike this takes me 10 mins quicker to do but this isn’t a bad time for the mountain bike. I’m quite happy with the 15 mph that I got for it I probably had to work just as hard to get that as I do for the road bike time.
Little ride around town since I spent most of the day watching the first day of mountain stages in the Tour de France
Road bike still in for repairs so lets continue with the mountain bike and play in the Ochil Hills Normally I would cycle up to Ben Cleuch but I wanted to do some reps and on a windy day like today it would be very windy indeed at the summit and I was just in my cycling shorts and top so no protection from the wind. Did the first rep before lunch and then headed down to the car for lunch. After lunch I did another 2 reps but the third wasn’t all the way up as I wanted to cycle a route I had seen but never cycled along. The forth climb was up the route I had never taken before and I didn’t follow it all the way up as by this time it was 16:00 and I wanted home in time for dinner. Anyway after cycling up 4700 feet I actually feel fine albeit very hungry now and the longest day in the Pyrenees is 12000 feet so I think I could survive that So I think the issue now is do I have the stamina to keep cycling big mountains for 7 days, I think so but time will tell, lets hope I get my road bike back soon as there are still some hills I want to climb on it.
So whilst the road bike is in for repairs for wear and tear I did some exploring on the mountain bike. There are a few public paths around that go through woods and fields and as you can see i got lost in a loop and a few dead ends but the public paths were overgrown (due to the good weather) so I didn’t persist down the overgrown footpaths as I was in shorts and cycling top and very unprotected but the dead ends I came up against would have been passable for not the overgrown foliage.
Well another annoying ride, 1 mile out ran over a pot hole and punctured >:-( out with the spare innertube and install that and pump it up. I blow the value as I try to remove the pump GRRRRR!!!!! cheap shite innertubes from Dundee. On closer inspection the values are screw in ones which I’ve never seen or used so I was able to screw it back in and pump the tyre back up enough to get me back home. Thank God I had bought some good Continental tubes the day before so I was able to swap the tube for the Conti’s and continue the ride but all the pissing around cost me an hour Anyway today I did a loop around the Forth modified to fit my Crossgates home rather than the Falkirk flat so instead of going through Linlithgow I went through bo’ness instead. Good time and speed got 50 miles done in under 3 hours, just…
