Jubly Jubilee weekend

Considering the amount of rainfall we had over the weekend I managed to get a good amount of time out on the bike over the four days.

All started on Saturday when I managed to persuade Joy (my wife) into using the bikes for a shopping trip to Farnborough.  I say persuade as whilst Joy likes going out on her bike (she use to commute 7 miles each way to Fleet 2 to 3 times a week until her work relocated to Reading last year) she does not like coming out on the bike with me as I am a terrible husband who does not understand the concept of cycling “together” as have a tendency of going at my own pace and leaving her behind and then nagging her for not going fast enough (bad Justyn).  We rode 8 miles “together” and I did a quick 2.5 mile sprint round the block after

 

Sunday was a wash out as it never stopped raining here and whilst I will ride in the rain if I have to I decided to give it a miss as Monday looked promising.

Monday decided to do a 50 miler with a 30 / 20 split.  I set off on a 30 mile route I have done a couple times before and was deliberately not pushing as knew had to pace myself for the distance and also had the pleasure of finding that the council has been using its “just throw loose stones on the road and they will eventually stick” resurfacing technique.  No idea on why they do this as from a car driver perspective it’s terrible for the paintwork and for a cyclist it’s nothing short of lethal.

Rant over (sorry) I was therefore surprised at the 30 mile mark to find I had averaged 17.5mph over the 30 miles so after a 15 minute comfort break, cup of green tea, a flapjack and water bottle refresh I set off to do another 20 miles with the target of keeping the average up.  All was well until I was nearly at the top of the hill at Farnham castle, some twerp honked their horn at me for no reason what so ever and the noise made me jump and so lose my rhythm on the climb.  This combined with the head on wind, exhaustion and mile long fox hill immediately after castle hill had me face a “brick wall” for the first time.  Not pleasant to say the least and had me thinking about how I have a long long way to go before ready for the G2P_ride.  Good news front though is that after every climb there is a descent and despite holding back because of not knowing the road I hit a new personal best for a top speed as reached 44mph (70kmph).

 

Woke up wanting to do a 10 to 20 mile ride on Tuesday just to see if the legs would co-operate.  Somehow managed to talk Joy into joining me for a ten mile ride.  We were at Farnham high street around the ten mile mark and I asked Joy how she was feeling to which she replied “fine”.  Me being a terrible husband translated this to “great” so I proceeded up Farnham castle hill !!!  Joy did a fantastic job and made it to the top of castle hill where I greeted her with a round of applause and a drink of water.  We did 22 miles and save for the castle and fox hill combination we pretty much stayed together for the whole ride, which is nice!