Crazy English Spring

Sunday was the day we planned for the Stratford Cycle club reliability ride. 54 miles through the Cotswolds. Sounds easy enough. Peaches and I took my car over the night before for the journey home. We planned to ride over to round things up to 100km (slightly more) and drive back.

We set off at 9:00am Sunday morning in glorious sunshine, Peaches, Ed and me. Approaching Warwick castle we met up with the Kenilworth Wheelers club run and mingled with them for a while. They were singularly unfriendly. Not one enquired who we were or where we were headed (which it turns out was the same place). You’d think having a 15 year old with us, they’d have been keen to recruit some new blood. Anyway we let them go and it was with some schadenfraude we came across one of their number stopped in a hedge fixing a puncture (none of the group had stopped to help him). We sailed past with a wave. I don’t know which way they went but we caught up with them again just outside Stratford and rode to the start in the grupetto.

The sunshine had fooled me into riding in spring gear. Summer gloves, no overshoes, no waterproofs. Which I was to regret. We set off in a group timed at 4 hours for the 87km, which I reckon is a pace of around 25kph. We started, and continued, at 32kph. Peaches got dropped at a junction and couldn’t get back on, so Ed and I dropped back with him and we made out own way round. The sunshine quickly turned to cloud. Which quickly turned to rain. It was already windy, but by the time we topped Broadway Hill it was sleeting, hailing, snowing. Everything the weather could throw at us it did. The temperature dropped rapidly. I quickly lost feeling in my hands and feet and regretted not dressing more appropriately. I stopped to help a guy with a flat and whilst hanging around got more and more cold. Once fixed he’d had enough and abandoned. Going back the way we’d come.

We pressed on across an open moor to Ford. It was bitterly cold and I was getting more miserable with each turn of the crank. Ed seemed fine but I could see Peaches was struggling. We decided to quit, but a look at the map revealed we were at the apex of the ride, as far as we could be from the start. We cut a few corners on the way back and rolled in to the finish bang on 100km, which ultimately was our goal, although we hadn’t followed the second half of the course. The weather had brightened up again, but as we sipped out tea to regain some warmth and shovelled down cakes and energy bars the heavens opened with a strong and persistent hailstorm. We were glad not be out on the road still.

Taking the car over the night before now seemed like the best idea ever. So it was with no little pleasure we loaded up, climbed in and drove off for well earned showers and the glorious roast chicken dinner that Beth cooked (for me and Ed at least).

2608kcal consumed, average HR 126 (72% max), max HR 162 (93%!), average speed 22.6km/h. 100km covered in 4h 19mins.