Lickys/Clent/Bromsgrove Sun 11th March

Distance: 50 miles (estimated)

Elevation Gain: 3,500 ft (estimated)

But of an odd ride this weekend. I left the house with the full intention of pushing some distance and attempting to keep building the legs up for this summer’s bike packing. I decided to do the same route as last week but this time wanted to keep the pace a bit higher. I shot off from home and was feeling pretty good. About an hour in I realised it was going to be a warm one, as I already had my jacket off and was plowing through the water. Fortunately I thought that might be the case and brought the hydration pack instead of just relying on the bottles. Good job really, as I got through about 2.5 liters by the time I got home. I was up and down all ride with how I was feeling. I don’t think that Saturday’s lunch time and evening ciders were helping the matter at all and the heat was really starting to get me at a few points. It’s that time of year when the mud hasn’t dried and still a slog but the sun is beating down and making you over heat at the same time.

First thing that went wrong was that I had some sort of mystery rear brake problem. Not really sure what happened but all the power disappeared all of a sudden. The lever wasn’t pulling the bar but it just didn’t seem to want to grip the disc. I took the pads out brushed them off, pushed the pistons back as far as they would go, fiddled a bit, put it all back together and it seemed fine?!? Second thing wrong was after maybe 35 miles I looked down at the GPS, I use a Garmin Fore runner strapped to the handle bar, and the distance seemed a bit low… and the timer wasn’t going. Hmmm clearly at some point I must have knocked the stop button. Pretty annoying as that put pay to any knowing if I was faster this week. I switched it back on but the urgency had left me at that point and decided that pushing it for any speed wasn’t really worth it any more. About 15 mins later I got a puncture and well that was my training spirit done for the day. Got the tube repaired and just decided to roll home.

As I was cruising back I reminded myself that not every weekend has to be about notching up the miles. It was a beautiful day and I should be happy to just be able to enjoy the outside. Its been a good few months since I been able to say that with short sleeves on.