Club ride day again, today. So, naturally, I woke up a couple of hours before the alarm was due to go off, and got all excited like a kid on Christmas Morning. Got out on the road
way too early, so rolled down to the Severn at Epney and back before joining up with the crew for my 19th club ride of the year.
There were 10 of us in the "relaxed" group today, but it ended up being far from relaxed. Did a huge great loop out around the Cotswolds, taking in Stroud, Chalford (with horrible hill), Sapperton, Daglingworth, the Duntisbournes, Winstone, Caudle Green (another mother of a hill) before gliding back down via the glorious Buckholt Woods (near Birdlip) and Nut Hill. back home via Upton St Leonards and Brookthorpe. At this point I had the genius idea to tag on a few more miles to bring my ride up to just short of 56 miles, so that i would bring up my 2,000 miles for the year. Arrived home totally nackered, having done 55.8 miles, and found that my year's total is now 1,999.9 miles! Was way too tired to even go back out to the garage, let alone get back on the bike.
Still, I survived all the brutish hills our route planner could throw at us, and it was another cracking ride. There was the slight matter of waiting 10 minutes at the start for
@Dark46 to show up (before realising he wasn't going to) and then later on pulling over in a bus stop for 15 more minutes when he texted to say he was at Bristol Street Motors (which was only a mile behind us) - only to find out after what seemed an age that he had then gone up the opposite side of the valley and was nowhere near us. (Look up "persona non grata" in the dictionary, bud!) Seriously, though, what a great route today. Hope
@Dark46 enjoyed his version of it as much as the rest of us did.