If you cast your minds back a couple of weeks, I might have mentioned my latest acquisition, in the form of a nice shiny new bike frame. Well, after a couple of weeks of a bit here and a bit there, I've finally got it built up and even if I do say so myself, it's looking mighty fine!
But there's not much point in having a new bike just sat in the garage looking all nice and shiny is there? It's supposed to be out in the wild, getting dirty and going on adventures. With that in mind and as I didn't seem to have anything else planned for this weekend, what better opportunity was there going to be for a little pootle around the locality?
Handily, our friends at Travelodge came up trumps with a cheap as chips room in Warminster for Friday night, allowing me to extend to word locality somewhat, with a pair of 80+ mile days and a real opportunity for a bit of a shakedown ride. Home, Odiham (I know it's the wrong way but I at least have to pretend that works important), Winchester, Salisbury and Warminster on Friday afternoon/evening. Followed by Warminster, Trowbridge, Chippenham, Marlborough, Hungerford, Home on Saturday morning. Now what's not to like about that?
To be honest though there's not much to tell you about, the bike behaved impeccably, floating across the rubble that passes as a road surface around these parts with ease, happily carrying a couple of small lightly loaded Panniers on the back as if they weren't even there and holding steady around the tight, greasy, gravel strewn corners, without so much as a shimmy.
Friday afternoon the sun shone for a few hours and even when it didn't the day was warmer than it's been for a while, making it a real pleasure to be out and about and the ride down to Warminster passed without note, just as it should do!
It must have rained overnight on Friday, although I'll confess that I was dead to the world and never heard a thing. The wet roads gave the game away though, and the wind had got up too. Something that would normally bring a frown to my face, with the prospect of an in to wind slog to look forward too. Not today though, with the wind from the West it was going to be on my back, pretty much all the way home. Result!
And whilst I'll admit that it was a dank, damp and overcast day, that wind on my back more than made up for it. It was a good job it was on my back too, because coming over the high point at Marlborough it was strong enough to cause me a few worrying moments when it caught the side of the bike, sending me heading towards the verge and it wouldn't of been much fun trying to go the other way, that's for sure.
And that's about all there is to say about that. 172 miles across the 2 days was certainly enough to give things a good shake down and takes me to 786 miles for the month, with Mondays commute still to add on, and that's not bad going for what's normally one of the worst months of the year weather wise. I'm not sure that setting the bar so high in January was the best idea though. It's going to take some living up too!
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Paul PerrattOld enough to know better, young enough to still feel invincible, stupid enough to keep on trying the same thing again and again. Cyclist, Gardener, Runner, Hiker, Cook, Woodworker, Engineer, Jack of all trades and master of none, Anti social old git and all round miserable bugger. Archives
March 2024
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