You can't give me the dreams that are mine anyway

Opportunity knocks. Pretty loudly, with an imminent warning that he's not coming back until at least next Tuesday, so rest or no rest, if I want to go out on my bike with him, I'd better do it today.

I couldn't persuade Skip either so it was just me, the bike, and a few thoughts left over from the Cotswold Spring Classic. Skip and I have a habit of revisiting old conversations, I think there must be some deep psychological meaning to that, unfinished business maybe. Today, events unfolding half the world away, took me back to my own words. There are not right or wrong answers, only cause and effect, action and consequence, morality is relative, sometimes, and as Chou Enlai is reputed to have said when asked about the efficacy of the French Revolution, thought for a moment before uttering "too early to say". And this was 200 years later.

Is it wrong to kill people? Does it depend on your perspective, or the consequence? Or the virtue of those doing or ordering the deed? Is it a good thing that some people feel good that someone has been killed, or bad that people like me ask questions about the complexities of morality?

Perhaps I'd better stick to cycling, it's simpler. If possible it was even windier than yesterday, coming from the north east, straight down the gorge into my face. Again, there were few cyclists about, the ones I saw were tanking it in the other direction. I'm glad I wasn't going down the gorge in that wind, you get some strange eddies and flurries around some of the bends and corners.

I was originally going to turn left at the top of the gorge, but couldn't face the direct headwind anymore, so changed tack a bit and headed along the road towards Green Ore. Horror of horrors, that stretch that had smooth black asphalt, now has horrible newly-laid chippings on it, no idea why they have done that when there are so many pot-holed roads they could have attended to. Like yesterday, once again I headed down to Chewton Mendip past the Waldegrave estate. Turning towards Litton I was at last out of the wind, and when I got on the main road through the Chew valley, it was pretty much a full tailwind.

Never has that road been so enjoyable! I was flying down the hills so fast it gave me loads of momentum to get at least half way up each succeeding uphill, and the gale on my back was akin to a helping hand over each crest. When I got to Blagdon I decided to take the steep road to the top of Burrington Coombe. Delightfully, the old knackered road on that hill has been resurfaced with some lovely smooth tarmac, which will make descending it a lot safer in future.

It's pretty steep at the bottom, but once past Yew Valley it settles down into a steady 8%, with a couple of short steeper bits here and there. Once at the top I had that tailwind again, this time for the long sweeping descent of the Coombe. And just as hoped, I recorded a new maximum speed for the year, and probably the fastest I have done with a 50 tooth front chainset ever (wow, anoraks of the world unite, I can't believe I have just recalled that fact without looking it up). 45.3 mph. I'll just check..........As I thought. I have only been faster on a bike 3 times, and all were on my Kona, which has a bigger top gear.

From there I wended my way home via the Langford Arms (I really must stay there one day to see what it's like and who else stays there), Ghost hill and Sandford. About 36 miles all in all, and I think that makes a pretty good training loop, with a bit of everything thrown in. Charlie records a point top speed of 68mph, but that couldn't be true, it did feel great though.

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/393166