Things largely suck for me currently and the bike is the only thing that offers any escape / progression, so I was eager to get out today after two (conveniently-timed) days off due to the weather / quite a few miles last week.
A more worldy cycling mate had mentioned to me recently a bit of NCR5 route from Woodstock through woodland which sounded nice - so exploring this part of the world was on today's agenda.
After life had adminstered another little kick in the nuts earlier I left in not-the-best-of-moods, with an appropriate soundtrack of Tool's 1996 epic
Aenema. I was pleased to be able to get to the stretch of NCR5 in question via other portions of the same route with which I was already familiar, but wasn't really aware of their part in the greater scheme of things. On this occasion the section along the tow-path was most notable for my being close-passed by a duck and receiving a fair bit of canal water to the face for the privilege..
Arrival at the pertinent part of the route showed it to indeed be very nice; a 3sh mile long stretch of slightly uphill, mostly undulating, wide-ish and pretty well-surfaced sandy singletrack through woods and the odd field. Not long in I realised I was putting in a fair effort; deciding to keep this up to let off some steam. The whole track was covered at somewhere between 85 and 90% of max HR, netting me some fairly heady placings on Strava's relevant sections - something I'm certainly not used to!
The singletrack completed and back on the road, I headed west then south-ish to Wootton, then on to Stonesfield, Fawler; down to North Leigh, Freeland then Eynsham and back into the city along the A40. Until this point I'd forsaken the cycle paths I'd come across as they're usually crap / more trouble than they're worth, however given the greater volume of traffic and reasonable-looking surface on the A40's cycle path I ducked off the road. Literally only a few hundred yards later I was reminded of why I never use these; when some muppet pulled off a garage forecourt; un-necessarily blocking the cycle lane (he could have been further forward) and causing me to have to stop. This situation being made worse by the worn / ambiguous road markings at this point so I couldn't really work out who had priority on the approach.
I carried on along the cycle path as to be fair it was still preferable to sharing the road with such d*ckheads and was largely free of any other "problematic" features for much of the remaining distance (other than the old duffer on a bike who evidenently didn't hear my "passing on your right" as I approached and swerved perilously toward me as I passed). Once at the Wolvercote roundabout I negotiated the pretty crappy "pedestrian-modelled" cycle lanes onto the ring-road east; nearly having a head-on with another cyclist who either wasn't paying attention or had forgotten what side of the road we ride on as he rounded the corner onto the Banbury road
I continued on the slightly manky ring road's cycle path to Marston, then back into town and home. At some point I realised that I'd nearly done more of this ride in HR zone 4 than 3 so kept the output high to try and push past this point. I arrived back home utterly rinsed to the point where I spent a few minutes composing myself outside before attempting the steps to the front door
Throughout the wind was present but not utterly terrible, it was warm in the sun but I was thankful for the long sleeves on my base layer when it disappeared. My legs were evidently kept warm by the effort, despite my choice of shorts..
Final numbers were a little under 44 miles and 1300-1700ft of climbing (depending on who you believe) at 14.9mph and 149bpm (41% in zone 4). Undoudtedly a big effort for me and a nice change from the low-hr wanderings that have typified my time with the Genesis so far. The speed is pretty lacklustre given the effort, however there were hills, an amount was off-road and the bike has fatter tyres and less racey geometry than my road bike; upon which I'd have expected maybe another 1-1.5mph on the mean speed (off-road bit nothwithstanding).
I think due to being well-rested and pretty p*ssed-off today's effort felt good; being relatively easy to maintain a higher output for much of the ride. I feel better for it too; was listening to Pantera before I left and now it's Mazzy Star
. Shaved a few seconds of my fastest time. The main roads are back to normal. Had to cross a busy A road. Lost a bit of time there.
