Take the rough with the smooth

An unexpected opportunity arose today. Mrs MMAM came back from London a day early, and for all sorts of reasons I got the chance to ride into work.

This was not the straight forward choice you might think it is.For starters the weather forecast was very mixed. The morning looked like it was going to be perfect cycling weather, while the evening was forecast to be as bad as it could be-wet and very windy, in the wrong direction. I don't mind bad weather, wrong clothes and all that. But it would mean I would have to be very imaginative about the choice of clothes, given the promised warm morning.

But in the end I was always going to ride, I mean, solo car journey or ride some hills before breakfast, what would you do?

The journey is was delightful, so I cycled over to Wrington, up Long Lane past the Walled Garden cafe, before zipping over to Winford, and up Dundry Lane to Dundry Hill. That road peaks at about 17% but it didn't feel too bad, except for having to dodge some hedge clippings on the way up, being spewed out by an early morning cutting from the farmer. I made a mental note not to come down that way, it's steep enough in the dry, and add in the wet, the clippings and the poor sight lines and it has "Accident or puncture" written all over it.

Once down from Dundry I popped over via Long Ashton and Ashton Court and into town. My workplace is now by Temple Meads, which means negotiating a fair amount of town traffic. As my Pyreneen adventure draws closer I am becoming increasingly cautious on the bike, especially in traffic. I just can not afford to get injured right now, there would be no time to recover. The net effect was that I crawled through the last 2 miles, bringing my speed down, which hadn't been the highest in any case.

On the way home it was wet, and windy. Although judging by the torrents of rain falling out of the sky right now, it could have been a lot worse. As I had my windstopper, now equipped with sleeves that I had detached this AM, as well as my overshoes (stuffed in a pocket in the morning), as well as waterproof socks, it was actually pretty good. I contented myself with climbing up to Winford, over to the Manor and then down through Wrington. I took it very, very easy on the way down too.

So very slow, but it's all good practice, gets me used to rainy riding, which we could have in France. I also managed over 2.7K feet of climbing, which can only help with the hill-climbing.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/45244297


On a sad note, one of my work colleagues was a close riding companion of Cath Ward, the time triallist who was killed following a collision with a car whilst riding last week. Obviously I don't know what happened, but it did remind me of why I get so cross when cars drive so close to People cycling. So perhaps I am justified when I get cross with a motorist using a hand-held mobile phone, or overtaking us when there is no room. My condolences go to her family and friends.