There’s a lovely ice cream shop “near” my house, and whilst I’ve been many, many times at this point, I have never actually gone beyond the turn off and seen what lies beyond. So today’s bike ride was all about answering that question.
Now it turns out that there’s actually not a right lot after. Just a few small hills to grind up, and a bit of road diversion with no clear explanation or reason as to why. Typical British road ways then.
Still, the views were quite nice.
I had hoped to come out somewhere near the UFO shaped service station at Forton. But I think I’d got mixed up and actually ended up in Scorton. So close.
One thing about this route, and the primary reason for choosing this one, was the flatness of it all.
Aside from the little hillocks (good word, not even made up), there really wasn’t much elevation on this route. Just ~200m in 47km. Practically flat!
My reasoning for such a flat route was to give my knees less stress. Fortunately they seem alright. Not perfect. There was some pain, particularly at sustained wattages, but I was happy enough with my pacing.
I tried to do some impromptu SST work. I must confess to having forgotten the exact figures I’m supposed to be aiming for, so opted for ~240w on, and ~200w off. Trying to do 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off out on the open roads is tricky though, so things didn’t go that smoothly. Still, it gave me a target.
On the way back I stopped off in the centre of Garstang to eat my banana and enjoy half of my energy bar. Lovely stuff.
Then it was back on the bike for the ~15km ride home.
On rejoining the A6, I found a couple of guys who appeared to be cruising along, and initially I figured I might be able to catch them up and kinda draft them. Alas, no.
Just trying to keep pace with them became my goal, and this was probably the most intense period the ride for me.
I managed to catch them in the end, but only because of major roadworks causing a huge tail back. We had a brief chat. A friendly pair on a tandem bike also joined us, and that was probably the best part of the whole ride. I’d definitely love to get into some more social rides. It’s much more fun with other people.
I’m happy with the way the week finished. I could have pushed on to 50km – particularly as I stopped off for a long chat and a coffee on the way home, so had plenty of legs left around 45km onwards. But overall I’m just glad that I met my 100km weekly riding target, and my overall calorie count on the week ended much higher than the figure it started at today.
This week could definitely have been worse. I’ve had a bit of a run of bad luck off and on the bike these last few days. I’m not yet convinced it’s over, but when I believe it is, I’m going to whack on a few lottery tickets – as I feel like the pendulum should swing both ways, you know?
