Out for a Bank Holiday Monday ride, with
@Rickshaw Phil in lovely sunshine. Chilly first thing and so I started with a jacket on, but still went with shorts.
I met Phil at the entrance to the estate and we set off in the direction of Betton Abbots, Berrington and Cross Houses. I was feeling the legs a bit, from playing cricket yesterday, but a light wind meant we made decent progress on to Atcham, Upton Magna and Withington.
Phil took me down a lane that I’d not ridden before, which was the first of quite a few bits of new territory, on the ride, which is always nice. Onwards we continued, to Roden and Poynton, then very busy lanes to Bings Heath, so much traffic that we wondered if something had happened on the nearby A53, but when we crossed it at Astley, there was no sign of any issues......
The lanes were thankfully quieter to Hadnall, bit of a wait to cross the A49 and then onto more new territory to Yorton, Alderton and Myddle.
Phil at our elevenses stop.
The section from Myddle to Marton is good fun, nice wide road and smooth surface, so some good speed can be found, before we turned back onto lanes again, to Weston Lullingfields and further new territory to Stanwardine in the Fields.
We paused in a gateway, for some lunch, along the lane to Stanwardine.
From Stanwardine, there was a lumpy section to Baschurch and we then decided to take a street through the old part of the village, past the church and the New Inn, to vary the scenery a bit. We had a short section on the main road, where neither of us could remember where the turning we wanted was, being confused a little by a new estate that has sprung up, but we found it and pressed on to Great Ness.
We were passed by 2 ladies, on this section, one apologising for flying past on an electric bike! Her friend was doing her best to keep up, but it was on the climb out of Baschurch, which is a pull.
From Great Ness, we turned onto the lane towards Montford Bridge and I had to stop along there, as my thighs were starting to cramp up. Not had that for a while, I’m blaming yesterdays cricket exertion. At Montford Bridge we joined the main road and the long climb up the hill, to Bicton, which can suffer from excessive traffic on holidays, but not too bad today.
We took Calcot Lane and then the descent through Gains Park, to avoid the busy Shelton traffic lights, then wound our way through the new estate, at Copthorne. Despite there being a lot of traffic about on the ride, everyone had been courteous and well behaved......until this section, where 2 cars decided to overtake us, squeezing past with no room whilst we were overtaking parked cars, which annoyed me a little.
Final stint was through Radbrook and Meole, where we parted ways and I headed on the final half a mile or so home.
Thoroughly enjoyable ride, with the good company of Phil, nice warmish Sunshine and 42.62 miles completed. That brought August mileage up, creeping past the 100 mile mark, to 108, which is my second lowest month of the year, so far. It’s been an odd month of poor weather and other plans. Hoping September will be better.
