Missed two weekends of riding due to covid, but finally tested negative Sunday just gone, so with the weather forecast looking good I decided today was the day to go bag 4 veloviewer squares out Apethorpe way, all 4 could only be got by bridleways so i had been leaving them as it was about 6 miles of off roading expected and it kills your average speed.
Anyway leave the house at 6 and it isn't very warm but thankly pretty much no wind, so long tracksters on; arm warmers on, jacket on, woolly gloves on.
35 miles into the ride and I get to Apethorpe and turn onto the first bridleway, this is 1.3 miles and then back before I go onto another bridleway. Well over a mile of it was perfect tarmac and just the end was compacted dirt, but that was pretty smooth.
Second bridleway and this is 2 miles and then back the way I came, first mile, again perfect tarmac, then half a mile on compacted dirt through a field and then back onto tarmac, at this point I saw half a dozen or so deer running through a field, luckily going away from me. The last bit of the bridleway was compacted stone, but with a lot of loose stone on top, so this was the only bit I needed to be careful on.
Before I turn around for the 2 mile trek back to Apethorpe the jacket, arm warmers and woolly gloves get shed.
at 44 miles another diversion to grab a square, 4 miles later my legs start hurting, but I push on, but anything up is really slow. I get to Elton (not far from Peterborough) and I see a garden centre, so decide to stop. I walk into the cafe and the bloke serving looked at me as if I was dirt and was a bit shirty with me, I was tempted to tell him to do one, but as I mature I am trying to be more tolerant, so order a coffee to takeaway and go find a bench in the village to sit at.
Get going again, grab a couple more squares by way of down a road and then turning back round to rejoin the main route.
I get to Wansford and I'm at 63 miles and it is time to turn west and head pretty much straight back to Leicester. At this point I am knackered and had to do a steady climb (absolutely nothing climb really, in fact some of it might have been flat
) of about 3.5 miles and it takes forever.
Get to Blatherwycke and take a rough road that drops down onto the A43. Get to the bottom and the road is closed. One car waiting, police car with lights on and a recovery truck tying down a wrecked motor bike. Coppers said biker was okay and had come off going down the A43, across the road the road signs are in the hedge. Anyway politely ask if they want me to wait for the road to open or can I walk around it, they wave me through
I decide I'm going to stop again and I'm convinced there is a cafe in Harringworth, but when I get there I can't find it, a couple of miles later I decide to stop, sat under a tree and have some chocolate. Feeling a bit refreshed I set off again.
I had an emergency cafe built in about 9 miles from the end in Tur Langton, riding up the hill to the village I get really bad cramp and had to jump off the bike, walk for a minute or so and then get back on. Get to the cafe and the lady says we are really busy, food might take a while. Music to my ears. I order a sandwich, a pot of tea and a can of coke. Must have been a good 30 minutes before the food came, which was good, because I'm a sod for rushing at stops and I really needed to rest.
Eventually set off and there are a couple of short sharp ups that I'm beginning to dread, not that they are massive, just that I am struggling. So I decide to change the route at the death and go through Great Glen, adds about a mile on, but only one up and it is a cycle path and is short and not that steep. Except I forgot the climb out of Great Glen, again it is a pimple really, but the road surface is awful and makes it much more difficult than it should be, anyway spin up it and I'm a couple of miles now from home and it is mainly downhill / flat.
Get home on just over 102 miles and my slowest ride for a long time at 15.2mph. Bagged 20 new squares and I've just noticed I'm 3 squares (all next to each other) away from increasing my max square
Time for lots of liquid and a kip I think. I can't remember the last time a ride like that was so hard, it can't be just the covid as it hardly affected me, I've had much worse colds, in fact I was worse at Christmas when I had a horrible cough but kept testing negative.
I'm still glad I went out, weather was glorious and loads of cyclists out.
https://www.strava.com/activities/6985449217
had to limp the 6 miles home.
