Well, today’s ride was supposed to be recovery. Outdoor and recovery, they never play well together. Throw in strong gusting wind and a lack of proper nutrition pre-ride and it was always going to be a stretch.
Anyway, off I went, just aiming to pootle around, keeping to the side roads so as not to be blown into traffic or something else equally bad.
Even though it was windy, and cold when the wind blew, I was layered up and perhaps a little too hot when the wind wasn’t blowing. Can’t win.
The thing with sticking to side streets is there’s a lot of unexpected traffic. Delivery vans pulling out, old ladies who can’t react quickly, not to mention all the broken twigs, tree branches and all that cruft that otherwise gets swept away with frequent traffic.
Having cleaned my bike yesterday I was disappointed to go down all the dirty back paths and filth it up again. But what other option was there?
Well, turning off The Guild Wheel (the dirt track essentially) to head back home, I had to go on the main roads.
As soon as I did, I had a meat head in a massive lorry cut me up for no good reason, then shout out of the window “use the f***ing bike path”… nice guy.
Was there a bike path? Yes.
Do I have to use it? No.
I pay my road tax. I might not drive much, but there’s no rule, as far as I know, that forces me to use the bumpy cycle path over the nice smooth road. It sucks to be stuck in your truck all day, getting angry at how bad life has treated you, so I get it that you need to vent sometime. But me trying to cross a road needn’t result in uncalled for abuse for absolutely no other reason than your head is made of ham.
Rant over.
So that kinda ruined it, honestly.
I didn’t get a long ride in today. And tomorrow is a Zwift ride. So it’s back on the turbo. Ahh well, at least I can’t get shouted at indoors.
