Sunday I met up with Catrin for a ride around Delamere Forest - much rolling terrain and tiny lanes and some slight off-roading (thank you Garmin for not quite knowing what's a road and what's definitely not!)
Monday I went along to a training session at Ashton Circuit - specially set up by British Cycling's Jenny Gretton for us girls. It was dark, it was raining, we had to ride 4 abreast round really sharp corners, I got totally worked, managed to outsprint the other people in my little group 3 times out of 4, had a puncture and no Andy to fix it (yes I did it all by myself) and I absolutely loved every minute of it - can't wait until next week and gutted that I can only make it to 2 of the 5 sessions.
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| Andy racing at the Ashton Circuit last summer (blue knees if you are wondering!) |
Today saw me out in the most beautiful sunshine - almost like summer, I even had shorts on, although with a pair of kneewarmers - can't be too careful! Catrin came over and declared that she was keen for a "beasting", well I can confidently say that she got one, and for that matter so did I!!!
The last few rides, well ok pretty much everything I've done so far this year has been relatively flat, bit if undulation but not exactly big hills. Today that was all to change, we left my house at about 10am and headed off towards the Peak District, starting with the very pleasant Long Hill, down into the Goyt Valley, up to the Cat and Fiddle - cue first burning lungs of the day and complaints of tired/weak legs.
Next we headed down to Wincle via Wildboarclough, on to Gun Hill - Gun Hill is often ridden by the Tour of Britain and usually provides some good action, thankfully we were going down the long steep side to head to Tittesworth Reservoir. Here we had a well earned stop for some sugar (Coke) and salt (Crisps) and energy (hot cross bun with cheese) before tackling more up to get to the Roaches, rode all along the bottom and then around the back via Newstone and Baldstones to get to Flash (ah-ahhhhh, saviour of the universe.......) the highest village in Britain ("Bollocks" said Catrin "Surely there are higher places in Scotland??" Probably but they might not be officially villages??)
By this point the legs were definitely feeling the strain and the will to try and ride quickly had left, that was until the AMAZING descent which is going down Axe Edge into Buxton - I love it!!! Clocked up some good mph's and then dragged my sorry carcass back over Long Hill and home. Thank God for sofas!
Thanks Catrin for top days out, more next week.........
In between I also managed a day out on the Grit - yes real rock climbing! Keen Youth (Dan Lane) needed to collect a camera lense and he was adamant that the sun was going to shine so we headed off to Hathersage, collect said lense and then went up to the Curbar end of Froggatt and the Froggatt end of Curbar. Now I remember a couple of route names from that end of Curbar and having done the routes when I was a bout 15 - but I think alzheimers must be setting in, I did the same routes and I didn't remember a thing about them!! Really fun day out, nice short routes, didn't get scared, managed to put gear in with only a few monumental faffs, and didn't at any point get cold or miserable - what a total result! That's how climbing should always be - I guess I might have to break out of VS territory and see what difference that makes???
And Dan was right the sun shone!
