Sunday 06 February 2011

Out the door before sunrise for my sneaky training ride this morning - Yeovil to West Bay and back.

Gaffer tape - a solution waiting for a problem

Before setting off I had to pack a load of stuff.  Now roadies don’t seem to use map boards or camelbacks (a sort of rucksack that carries all your water and includes a bit of handy storage), favouring water bottles and a pocket on the back of their jersey instead (and who am I to question why).  Upshot of this is there isn’t much space for luggage.  The solution - I gaffer taped the majority of my spares to the frame and jury rigged my maps to the handle bars.  Wrecked the beautiful lines of the bike, but needs must.  I’ll ask a proper roadie how you get round this problem another day.   

Hills, lots of hills - not all went down. 

As it was still blowing dogs off chains I marked up my maps with a route that I hoped would bring me home with the wind behind me.  I’m also not particularly familiar with this part of the world so my route avoided the busy main roads.  The problem with this strategy, I discovered, is that the main roads tend to follow river valleys.  The back roads don’t.  They tend to go via the hill tops and the river valleys.  They also build the hills a tad steeper here than in London.  I was slightly shocked when I realised I had run out of low gears and all I could see was hill in front of me, getting steeper.  I have learnt that, when presented with this situation, the next step is to get out the saddle shortly followed by having a near stroke.  

West Bay and Wind

My plan with the wind worked beautifully, it was merciless on my way out (and I mean merciless), but gave me a much appreciated push on the way home.  Managed just shy of sixty miles, would like to have done a few more (but I had promised to be back in good time for lunch). 

My only disappointment of the day – the Harbour Cafe in West Bay was shut.  My protracted deliberations as to whether I should try and get an egg and may be even black pudding in my bacon sarnie had sustained me an awfully long way.  A bit of flapjack from the newsagents was not what I had in mind.

Garmin Connect stats are here.