bike, bike ride, biking, club ride, marston moretaine, menu, spain, stony stratford, team mk
Hi, I am back and blogging again now, I was also back out on a Team MK club ride this morning, six weeks after my last one before my Spanish sojourn. The ride to the Forest Centre cafe at Marston Moretaine became a 90km ride for me including my ride to Stony Stratford to the start of the ride. Its quite a hilly route anyway but it contains two of my least favourite climbs. The ride up from the Two Locks pub at Stoke Hammond and just seems to go up and up in three stages until you get to Little Brickhill. Then to round things off on the way back there is the long drag up Marston Hill into Cranfield right after restart after the coffee break. They both have varying gradients all the way up and I can never seem get a good rhythm going.
I was a bit apprehensive about my condition before the ride, I did a 50km ride on Wednesday and that was my first ride for just over two weeks, the previous one was in Spanish sun. The notorious Tramuntana wind in Spain put paid to anymore rides out there in the last week or so. The wind comes down from the mountains and it was around 50mph with frequent gusts up into 80’s!!
Anyway, I survived pretty well today, better than my expectations, especially on those hated climbs. Talking of which I spent the afternoon in front of the TV watching the pro’s riding up the last mountain stage of the three week Giro d’Italia. They were fierce. Todays stage was over five hours and 199km the last 40km of which was more or less “UP” to over 2000 metres of altitude. Mind you the riders were mostly 40 – 50 years younger than me so I guess everything is relative! So after the professional final stage tomorrow I get my afternoons back. I don’t have to cram everything in to the morning to free up the afternoon. The sofa could probably do with a break as well.
I am hoping to get some photos of the recent trip up on my photography blog just as soon as I have finished editing them and selecting the best for your delight and delectation.
I am glad that you got back safely.