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| MAIN STREET IN CORFE |
Fast forward to the Friday morning........Rain! Yes! just as promised rain . Where the rain differed from what we had been promised was that it was heavy...No! more than heavy...try torrential !! There was no let up. A phone call to Mike & Chris established a plan....we would wait until midday and see if the torrential rain would ease off to just a heavy downpour. Come midday and the rain seemed worse. After having spent the Monday Tuesday Wednesday & Thursday cycling in lovely spring sunshine, there was no way that I was going to set off on a camping weekend in torrential rain. Now you can call me a wimp or a fair weather cyclist
if you like, but having just spent three weeks trying to shake off a bronchial infection the last thing I needed was to get soaked through cycling to the campsite. If I set off on a trip and the weather 'turns' bad , well that's different, but setting off in torrential rain has a touch of madness about it. Before I retired I would probably have still set off...but nowadays when I can ride my bike whenever I like, it just seems sensible to choose days to ride when the weather is dry...
When I cycled Lands End to John o'Groats it rained every day for the full 10days and 1,000 miles...riding the bike soaked to the skin is not a lot of fun...! Especially if it's cold....Well not in my book anyway.
As it transpired the Saturday and the Sunday turned out dry and sunny, although it was cold with a frost in the mornings.
We WILL do the trip....in fact the plan is to do it as part of a Spring Backpackers Club meet in nine days time- so hopefully I will be able to post some photos of the trip just after that.
Now the weekend is over and we are into a new week - the weather has gone back to 'the spring has sprung' with a nice blue sky and just a light wind as can be seen in the photo of the main street in Corfe.
The shot of my Garmin 605 shows my ride today...(The speed of 3.7mph is the speed of the chain ferry as I was crossing back to the Sandbanks side) I still had a further 5 miles to ride before getting back home.The ascent over the 25.05 miles recorded was 4133ft.including two hills of between 16% - 18%. I know with more training rides I will be able to push the average speed up but I am going through a bit of a static time at the moment without any visible signs of progress. It can be very disappointing......!
The plans for the Rock2UK ride scheduled for September are still up in the air with no confirmation from Dave Vaughan that he has the time off from his employers. I am getting quite concerned about this, as the longer the situation goes on the less time we have to sort out alternative arrangements.
Nothing else to report on at the moment but you can be pretty sure that everything will happen at once ....just watch this space...!!
7 comments:
Sunny days are coming, and your riding is gonna be ready. It's going to be great riding the next 6 months now that we have survived the winter. :-)
It was a wise decision, my comrade. Better safe than sorry. Moreover, it seems much more pleasant to travel by bike on a sunny day than in the rain.
Glad to hear that you are back on the wheels again and it's good to know that you can pick your days. Once I was so determined to go camping to do Lake District hill walking in inappropriate weather that I got a severe chest infection. Although I have camped on a lot of occasions since, I am always wary about it particularly when friends choose a date months in advance.
The only time I have been to Corfe it definitely didn't look like this.... it was difficult to cross the road !!
Sounds like a wise decision to me. Made a similar one last Saturday. Could have left in the dry, but almost guaranteed to get wet before we got home, so I opted to not do it.
I've been commuting on the single speed recently - one of the nice things about it is that you stop worrying about speeds and any sort of competition because it is not comparable with other bikes. If you're riding in a group there's no pressure because everyone expects you to be slow on the hills, to walk even - also good for the legs as you have to learn to spin fast.
*MrDaveyGie *CarlosRibeiro *taio *Tracey W
Thanks for the comments..it was certainly a wise decision not to ride.
*J_on_tour
Your right- that road through Corfe can be pretty busy..the summer months tend to be the worst.
*Mark
1968 was the last time I rode a single speed. It was a fixie with a flip wheel so you could ride fixed or just single speed. I lived in a flat area then. I don't think that I would want to ride one in this hilly area. I actually like riding gears and don't want to get off and walk up a hill..LOL
As for the competitive side of riding I enjoy that too even though sometimes my performance can let me down- but that is all part of my enjoyment of it...
Will you be coming to the BPC meet Friday week?
Riding in the rain is okay. Camping in the rain - not fun. Riding in the rain, followed by camping in the rain - no thanks.
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