As
@Supersuperleeds mentioned a few posts back, yesterday the pair of us plus
@13 rider did another ride to Lincoln. Due to my desire to extend my Veloviewer max cluster all the way to Lincoln, the route was a little circuitous and included some things that could only tenuously be called roads!
Still, meeting bright and early at Stanford Upon Soar, we headed north through East Leake to Cotgrave along some of my favourite cycling roads. On the way to Tithby, I let the others grab an easy square at the junction with Stragglethorpe Road. At this stage, I realised that they were playing some sort of mile baiting game for highest mileage on the day!
Once through Tithby and Bingham, we headed down to East Bridgford and wended our way through East Stoke to Farnham. En route, we caught the first hint of how lovely a tailwind we had. Pootling along at 23mph with little effort, it was almost a shame to stop but stop we did at Hardy's Farm Cafe for some Bacon. Quite a nice little stop!
Some post-breakfast square catching included a muddy track which must mean I'm rivaling
@13 rider for dodgiest road travelled on! On through Newark which made for slow progress before being blown almost to a stop on a sharp descent,
@Supersuperleeds acting as domestique.
After a brief sojourn along the a17, we entered Lincolnshire for the second 50miles of the route. Again, the tailwind had us going along above 20mph with little effort so on a straightish, flat bit of road, we thought we'd try! I think I got top speed with 31.6mph whilst racing to overtake
@Supersuperleeds!!
The route took us through some dubious tracks in places as I'd not checked google maps properly for all of the route but soon the ridge drew ever nearer and the inevitable 12% climb! As ever,
@13 rider crested first (I believe as I was far behind!). The route east to Metheringham was lovely prompting some more speedy riding. At this point, I wish we could've kept going until the coast! I was just glad I could sit on the front for a bit of the ride as I've not been able to for the last few rides, my hill climbing has dropped off this year.
At Metheringham, we found the cafe and had a nice lunch in their "beach" area. Who would've thought it, eating outside in summer gear in mid-October!? Following food, we headed out to the old airfield and along one of the disused runways; quite special for the engineer in me! For the land to still bear much of the remains of an airfield which was only used for 3 years is remarkable over 60 years later!
From here the route got harder, heading northwest toward Lincoln. Unfortunately, the route planning here went a little awry and we chose to walk a short footpath rather than taking the bridleway to Dunston. Unfortunately, this cost us a square!
With 90miles in my legs, heading along the B road into Lincoln, I started to suffer fairly badly. I struggled to keep up with the others even when drafting but didn't want to slow too much. As a result, Id lose contact anytime I relaxed a little bit. Still, after a few miles of this and that deflating feeling of losing power in my legs, we descended into Lincoln and to the station. A century for me and at least 112 for the others.
A splendid day out and my favourite ride (apart from my tour) in quite a few months!
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