Saturday's ride was just a quick 4 mile fizz to the village and back to test new saddle. Nothing interesting to report other than new saddle was far better than old (original) saddle and that the position wanted tweaking.
Today, first serious ride with new saddle after Saturday night's subsequent tweaks and before Wednesday's commute. And was also the first ride with new winter gloves that arrived this morning. Chose what is fast becoming my usual loop (approx 14 miles) via Downham, Way Head, Coveney, Ely and back home again. Set out at quarter to 4, still good daylight and reasonable visibility despite the mist. Was a wee bit nippy, but not yesterday's bone-chilling cold - puddles were still frozen over however, as were all but the largest drains.
Good run up into Downham. Other side of the village, noticed that someone has fly-tipped yet more rubbish in the field near Red Caps Drove again, muck heap or no.
There's a brilliant recycling centre 10 mins up the road, so, there's really no excuse... However, you could really feel the warmth coming off the muck heap - which incidentally, was steaming. It's a very strange sight.
Out by Way Head and towards Coveney they were shifting sugar beet, so things got pretty mucky. And yes, I received a mud shower courtesy of a passing beet truck.
Was unavoidable though as it's a single track road through there. Through Coveney and down towards Ely and back towards home the roads were fine, even at commuter o'clock. Dusk started to set in, but I didn't have to put my lights on full whack as the evenings are getting noticeably lighter.
Wildlife count: four herons, ten whooper swans (about 200 less than the other day) and (I think) a kingfisher. For the latter I was going more on shape rather than colour as the light wasn't brilliant by then.
Ended up being a very enjoyable 1 hr 15 mins ride nonetheless. Amazing what a difference warm hands and a bum that isn't numb makes. A
for both the new gloves and saddle, but I did make a boo boo and set the saddle nose a bit too low, so I kept sliding forwards all the time.
Ah well, that's nothing 30 secs with an allen key won't solve. Kit needs to go into the laundry, but both bike and Human have already been satisfactorily de-mudded.
(if I'd put any more layers on, I'd have made the Michelin Man look like Starvin' Marvin...). The mist was so thick you could practically cut it as well. I went down the A591 to Rydal, turning off onto the Under Loughrigg Lane to escape the traffic, skirting the outskirts of Ambleside, then onto the B road down Langdale and left onto the Hawkshead road. A few miles down that, before turning off onto the cyclepath towards Wray Castle and the path down the west side of Windermere-beautiful even in the mist-as far as the Bowness ferry. Then the fun of the uphill grind to Far Sawrey (I managed to stay in the big ring nearly all the way) and a quick pit stop at the Cuckoo Brow Inn for some refreshment
. After that I wended my way through the lanes towards the A593 near Skelwith Bridge and a brief uphill grunt towards the turning for Little Langdale and Elterwater , not stopping at the Britannia this time as I was there most of yesterday evening (we got 2nd in the quiz yeehaaa
) and I still had the spooky X-filesy path through Deerbolts Wood to negotiate before one last downhill sprint into Grasmere. All in all not a bad start to the week...I'm so glad I bought a merino wool baselayer though!
