First time in a few months that I’ve been out with the KV group and it didn’t disappoint. It was a good move to put my summer wheels on (nothing too fancy, Hunt Aluminium aerowide, but they few mm’s of aero make a difference).
A 50k gravel-ish effort, which amazingly featured my first placings on Strava [because no one does those segments, but let’s ignore that for the moment ]
The devil’s tail is a b*stard of a climb on a converted road bike, mind you!!
First batch of nice weather in what feels like months in Trondheim. Temperature around 10-ish C, very light breeze, not a single cloud in the entire sky:
Saturday Morning Group Ride. Haven’t recovered from chasing my wife up hills on her e-bike yesterday. 50 mi and 3563 ft of climbing. Was off the back on most of the hills. The first day with temps over 60 F (15 C) in NE Washington
Went out for a ride today. It was just over 80km (52 miles) with 6300’ of climbing but headed out, I wasn’t sure it would be over 15mi. The temperature was about 5C for the first and last ±45min and otherwise around 2C. Less than hour into the ride I knew I didn’t eat enough before heading out (a dark wheat roll with fruit aka dinkelbrot mit frucht) and two cups of tea. I had only two gels because I neglected to get more but two bottle of Maurten 320 plus two more packs. Fortunately, despite the weather there was one place (a trailer at Raten Pass, soon after the highest peak and before the next peak) on the route, open for snacks, so I got a hot dog (6CHF, which is about $6) which was surprisingly delicious and a proper hot dog (a rarity here).
The ride wasn’t meant to be fast, which meant I was not disappointed when it wasn’t fast. It was time on the saddle and enjoying the outdoors. Despite the cool weather, on the second half of the ride, there was an increasing number of people I saw on the trails, hiking or enjoying bbq’s. The Swiss love to bbq using firepits scattered throughout the forests, which meant some great smells as I cruised home. Unfortunately, no brats in the fridge when I got home, a situation I’ll address tomorrow when the market is open.
Ride title says it all. A couple hours later and my throat is still sore from the violent sneeze attack. Yesterday we had strong north winds, woke up this morning and still NNW 8mph gusting 12mph. Die another day.
On the bright side I did a new TT warmup protocol.
edit 3 hours later:
wife just now, almost 3 hours later “hey, either cough it out or have another cigarette!”
Theme song: Hayes Carll “Drunken Poet’s Dream”
“I got a woman she’s wild as Rome
She likes to lay naked and be gazed upon
She crosses a bridge and then sets it on fire
Lands like a bird on a telephone wire”
I got back and watched the Amstel Gold but I had the ickling to go out on the TT bike for some practice. So half way through the winners speech (a cyclist btw) I did (sorry for the massive spoiler but it just slipped out)
This is my Sunday spin. Mostly endurance, except for the hills, which you just can’t escape in the Cotswolds. The light was beautiful early morning so I stopped to take a couple of snaps.
The top of Snowshill, in two months time. This area is world famous for it’s lavender and you can’t move for tourists and the coaches that bring them. The smell is amazing.
Pettit was in my calendar today and it was another fab day so I took it outside to get some real world TT practice. My route took me down to the Giddings (a series of villages) then round to Sawtry before heading back on the old A1 to Peterborough.
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