In preparation for Mallorca in 2 weeks there wasn't much I could do about the weather, but I could find some hills and put in some decent miles. So, with Mother's Day on Sunday (and the wife angling for some sort of preferential treatment), I figured I would go for a longer Saturday ride.
My previous two outings with the Wheelers has increased my knowledge of the local B roads and increased my base stamina to the point where I'm now comfortable with a 3 hour solo ride. An average of 20mph is still a stretch but I thought 17-18mph would be achievable, so with that in mind I tried to plan out a route that would be between 50-55miles and take in a few decent hills, keeping off the main roads as much as possible.
When cycling, my preference is to see as much of the countryside as I can, so a loop or figure of 8 route works quite well for me (as opposed to a straight out and back). So with all the requirements taken into consideration I sat down with "gmaps pedometer", "BBC Weather" and "the wife's calendar" to devise a game plan. I think most folk probably use "map my ride", I'll need to give that a try but "gmaps pedometer" is familiar to me and no registration required.
So with permission slip signed, spares and provisions onboard, gadgets all powered up and synced, it was time to set off. For most of the ride there was a decent cross wind but between miles 2-6 it was full in my back so I opened the taps and got my average speed up to around 25mph. I eased back after passing through Echt trying to keep in mind that this was going to be a marathon, not a sprint, regardless of how much fun I was having. There were a couple of tasty hills en-route to Torphins so instead of selecting the lighter gear and spinning up as I am certain to do in Mallorca, I kept her in a heavier gear and tried to grind up to simulate the steeper hills that I am likely to face. Once at the top I had to negotiate some snow on the road before the decent into Torphins opened up. I'm definitely going to try that one again on a warm dry day, I think the average speed could get quite interesting.
I followed the signs to Aboyne and tried to link together all the side roads in my head so I can devise some alternative routes throughout the year. As I crossed on to the South Deeside my garmin informed me that I'd passed through the 25mile mark. One of my problems on these longer rides has been getting my nutrition correct. With only 750ml with me I kept it fairly even with a decent gulp every 5 miles. On the food front I ate half a nutrition bar after the first hour (I had 2 with me), then took a bite every half hour after that. And fingers crossed it seemed to work for the 3 hour ride. Although for a 4 hour ride I'll need to fit an extra bottle cage and take a few more energy bars with me.
I battled into the wind for a bit until I came to Finzean. I've only passed through it once on a Wheelers ride but I was pleased to affirm that I was in familiar territory and hadn't veered off the planned route. There's a decent climb up to a monument around there. It would make a nice spot to stop and have a couple of sandwiches and fuel up, but I only had a mouth of energy bar and set off on the decent and lump trails to Banchory. I was pretty certain I could take the turn off to Kirkton of Durris but I wanted to play it safe so rode straight in to Banchory and took a right towards Aberdeen. This was the first busy road that I'd been on all day but the cars were very respectful (they must be used to a fair amount of MAMILs passing through there) and gave me plenty of space and time as they passed by. Even so, I wanted to get off the road as quickly as possible, so I skipped the first turn off to Reimor and took the second left at the new Tesco and took the road back to Echt.
I was feeling remarkably strong, or at least not dying as expected, so I decided I would make the milage up to 55miles for the trip. So once I got back to Echt (and familiar territory) I put in a few shimmies and extra loops to take me back to the house to finish on 55.5 miles in 3hrs 05mins.
With only 2 weeks to go I'll need to put in some more work but at least I know that I've got enough in the tank to get me round. As Greg LeMond (and now the rest of the cycling world) say, "It never gets any easier, you just get faster".
RSS Feed