Yes, my gift to my darling wife and mother of my two children was some quality time with them while I scarpered out on my bike! Fear not, it had all been pre-orchestrated and booked, although perhaps I was back a little later than anticipated. But I'm not going to suddenly magic in to condition for this 100km ride.
Started out at 7am with my usual quandary of how many layers and what type of clothes to wear.
Initially I walked out of the house with thermal gloves, but then for some reason ditched them, left them in the house as opposed to carrying them with me and left with my full fingered goves. And I also wore my extra special cycling socks which as you can imagine let the air flow around your feet easier, and also of course, in cold weather makes your feet freezing.It wasn't long, roughly 5 minutes before I knew I'd made the wrong decision. But I'm a man and I stick by my wrong decisions!
Met up with Rob, Ian and Daz and quickly agreed our route. Ended up being quite a nice day, headed towards Bromsgrove and tried to lay low from all the pro cyclists out there, but it is great to see so many out on days like yesterday.
I am quickly coming to terms with the fact that no matter which way we ride, we will face hills. I'd rather tackle them early, but there's no chance. Looks like I live on a rige 200m above sea level and everywhere else is just under 50m. Ended up doing 35 miles, which was probably 7 or 8 more than we're used to, but as time wasn't a great factor it was worth it. Saying that, some of the boys were looking panicky at 10.20am when were only at McDonald's in Longbridge.
I really need to sort out our sunday breakfast, all the coffee shops are usually closed though, so it leaves us without much of an option. I doubt MaccyD's breakfasts are particularly healthy, but they do give you a little kick. We now have less than 2 weeks to go until event day. Tomorrow I will be posting about the fundraising aspect of the ride, as I have a few thoughts on the matter.
