Ride 17/07/2021

It’s a glorious hot sunny day only ruined by the strong winds. There were 10 of us today but this time I wasn’t doing the bun run it was just a ride with some of the club members. Thankfully after yesterdays mad fast ride I wasn’t riding into the headwind to begin with I was still tired from yesterdays ride and not fully recovered yet. We would be in a head wind all the way up to close to Kippen where we would be stopping for a cafe break, I stayed at the back in this part. We would then return via Stirling and the Foothills this time with a tail wind and I took lead for a little while, I wanted to conserve energy here as I would be doing 100 miles today whereas everyone else would be doing around 70 miles. I would split with the group just at the turn off for Knockhill and I would continue on to Milnathort and around Loch Leven. This would still not be enough mileage so I had to tag on some extra miles and here was my problem. Once past Loch Leven I would be into the headwind on my own and by this time I was over the 80 mile mark and tired. The headwind was brutal it had me going at a snails pace and I just didn’t have the power to punch through like I did on yesterdays ride. Anyway 102 miles clocked up at 16 mph avg speed, that would have been 17 mph if it weren’t for the head wind