60 is the new 50

I did my first 60 mile ride on Saturday so a new longest distance.  Stacey has not been on the bike for almost a month so he opted to join in part way to reduce the shock of getting back on the saddle but it was really nice to have him along side for 40 miles.  I took a 13 mile route to Stacey’s place via Farnham castle hill / fox hill so was “warmed up” when Stacey joined me.  We then proceeded to do our 40 mile route past Frensham Pond.  Had to stop at Frensham Pond to fix a puncture on Stacey’s bike and was a good chance to see how my little pump performs (it was great).  Leaving Frensham Pond I was very aware that there was two big hills ahead of us so was conserving energy, especially after already scaling the Farnham Castle / fox hill combi.

First climb went well and whilst I got up the (naughty word) hill at Holybourne it still is not something to look forward to.  Big respect to Stacey as he got pretty much to the top of the hill before discovering that his back wheel had twisted in the stays (its an old 90’s bike and you could adjust the position back then) and was rubbing on the frame so hard that it could not be turned by hand!!!.

Whilst riding one section of tree lined road next to Golden Pot we had a bird of pray swoop down from the tree line, along the road and back into the woodland just in front of us.  Was an awesome spectacle to see, wing span was huge.

We took Froyle Lane at a pretty good lick of speed (up to 30 mph), it’s an undulating and twisty section of single track country lane which would be absolutely awesome if you could close it so knew there where no cars coming but with it being public use at the time we may have been a bit cavalier on this occasion.

We had a short break to eat a twix at the 40 mile mark and I left Stacey at his place before heading home to complete the 60.09 miles.

Was a great ride, thanks Stace.