Are brake blocks overrated?

Stupid question really. Just one of the ones I was not pondering as I circumnavigated East Somerset today, a distance of over 70 miles, and close on 5 hours of cycling. In case you are wondering, it was wet. Very wet. Rain teeming out of the skiy, running down the (steep) hills at a pace similar to mine. I was on a lot of roads that were new to me, so I had this trepidation going on as I approached corners on hills, in the wet, with worn brake blocks.

I bought new ones later, all ready to fit (oh joy-how i love the fiddly aspects of low-level cycle maintennance. The bits you know how to do, but are almost certain to either drive you into a stress on a sunday morning, or well and truly mess up). But that's for tomorrow.

Today I met up with Skip in Axbridge at a reasonable 9.15, after an exchange of 8 texts, 6 e-mails, involving weather, route, time to leave, time to ride for, time to get back, type of terrain to be ridden. And what did we do? We headed over the levels to Glastonbury. It was nice to have some company, and very nice to have a super dometique across some pretty windy flat, terrain. I have been away all week learning how to use a pyschometric instrument (it's a bit like a trombone, only more insightful) and my brain was very frazzled. (Can you still buy frazzles? They are a bacon crisp-type thing from the 70s and 80s). So it took me a while to get going, but eventually we arrived at our coffee stop.

We were greeted very courteously and politely by a man sat at a nearby table, who then proceede to have several in-depth and broad-ranging converations with himself. I was convinced he had one of those bluetooth gizmos, but no, he was talking to the men inside. Skip reckons it's Glastonbury that attracts them, but then I have conversations in my head all the time, I just don't let them out. Come to think of it, this blog could just be one long conversation with myself for all I know. Are you there?

Skip had pressing domestic issues to sort, so took advantage of the prevailing southerly wind to zoom home:

http://www.thecyclingmayor.com/?m=201003

Meanwhile, I headed east and a bit of south, over to Bruton, a town I passed through last week. Just to be different, (imagine a nasal expert accent here) this time I passed through on a south-west to north-east axis, heading for Frome.

I actually used Charlie in a different way today, although I lost satellite reception at one point in Castle Cary. Instead of looking at my elevation, cadence, heading, gradient etc. etc. I came up with a novel use for a sat nav- working out where you are going. Novel.

From Nunney (which has a lovely castle) I headed up into the East Mendips, on long, straight and very windswept and wet roads. It was now raining quite hard, but the rain jacket and boots, and waterproof socks did their jobs. By now of course the wind had swung around to the South West, proving beyond any doubt whatsoever that wind is always in the face of the cyclist. Never mind, head down, pedal hard and get on with it, said the voice in my head.

The only problem was that the roads were just a bit too empty and straight. This encouraged the drivers to fly past me at high speed and close proximity, once or twice I was convinced I was about to join the slightly bemused sheep in their fields.

Eventually I hit familiar territory and sped down the gorge, before returning home. A good ride in blustery conditions, albeit a bit damp. It was quite warm though, as long as I didn't hang about too long.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/27495698