Winter Hill again

After dinner I used the GPS to race my alter ego around Winter Hill again.

It was a lovely warm June evening, and although I made a decent start, before long I had given up the race, and decided to just enjoy the journey.

As a result I was trailing my previous performance by the time I reached the top of the hill (and the best view). Then the competitive spirit kicked in, I hurtled down the slope into Cookham, and caught up with my previous time. I kept up a good pace along the river and back up through Maidenhead. So by the time I got home I was back in the lead again.

That was my third carefully timed ride round the same ten mile loop: each at an average speed of roughly 13mph, or just over 45 minutes from start to finish. In the process I've improved my speed, but not by very much, and this evening I did it mostly by keeping my bottle and maintaning a higher speed downhill, rather than anything more energetic.

Obviously I would have set myself an easier goal if I had timed the first circuit at an easier pace. But I didn't. The result is that it is more satisfying to see an improvement.

It would be even better to see more improvement. But that will have to come on another (cooler) day.

Virginia Water

It was a little too hot for a long ride today, but I managed to get started fairly early and I covered 34 miles by lunchtime: thereby avoiding the worst of the heat.

It turned to be quite a good route.

I went out to Virginia Water, crossed Windsor Great Park, then followed the Round Berkshire Cycle Route through Old Windsor, Datchett and Eton. I returned along the river to Maidenhead.

The general outline of the Round Berkshire route is becoming more clear from the map, but it is often difficult to follow the signs at a detailed level. Also, I had expected to do a bit better today on average speed than things turned out. But I can always blame the heat for that.

"Anywhere my imagination takes me"

I bike Manchester.



No, I don't - but this is quite an interesting documentary about people who do.

In particular, look out for the little lad who says "I want to go anywhere my imagination takes me". That pretty much captures the point of it.

Great accents, but flaky sound.

A good end to the week

I've not broken any records this week, having been away over the weekend, busy during the week, and discouraged by lousy weather on a couple of occasions.

So the totals look pretty unimpressive. However, the week ended on a high, racing my alter-ego on the GPS system around Winter Hill and Cookham.

Needless to say, I won, and shaved a little bit off my time in the process. All very satisfying.

First service

This post is nothing to do with Wimbledon, which starts later this month.

I was supposed to take the bike back to Saddle Safari in Marlow for her first service back in March, but somehow never got round to it, and it was only yesterday that we went in for her to be checked over and generally tweaked. There were no real problems (apart from my failure to find a great big gate into the workshop at nine o'clock in the morning). But by the time I picked her up in the evening, they had adjusted things and she has come back in better shape than before. Changing gears is now much slicker than it had become, and the brakes are tighter.

I've not had much time for a really good stretch since, but I have managed a couple of short trundles, both on my standard short loop round the suburbs of Maidenhead.

In the process I've figured out how to use the GPS to race against myself. On the first circuit yesterday evening I averaged 11.7 mph (compared to about 10 mph last time I measured it) and on the second circuit this evening I averaged 12.3mph. Not a big difference, but at least moving in the right direction.

Now that I have figured out how to do this on a short loop, I will have to see how we manage on the longer, 10 mile loop.

Monthly round up

I'm a bit more satisfied with my progress in May than I was in April.

My total mileage for the month has been the highest so far, at 306 miles. The extra distance was not down to the number of trips (which was higher than in April, but lower than in February and March). It was more the result of longer outings, averaging almost ten miles each.

During the month I've pushed my longest trip up to more than 60 miles, and in the process I visited the twelfth of the list of outstanding English Churches that I was aiming to reach by bike during the year.

I'm still not making as much progress as I would like on my average speed over a distance, but I am on track to reach my target for total mileage over the year. I have plugged a few gaps in local coerage of Open Street Map; and I even improved the number of blog posts over the month (though the number of daily visitors remains pretty flat).

Generally I feel that I'm heading in the right direction, with plenty more room for improvement.

C2C

A few days away from home this weekend, around the general area of the Coast to Coast route (but not on the bike).

There were a few cyclists on the road, braving some impressive climbs, around Hartshead, and Alston.

However, the most interesting exchange I overheard was not between riders of push-bikes, but between a couple of middle aged men on large motor-bikes.

Biker-1: I heard that you hadn't been well recently. So it's good to see you back on the bike again.

Biker-2: Well the doctor told me that it isn't safe for me to drive the car any more, but he didn't say anything about the bike.

I imagine he was joking.