A Sunday off and it had stopped raining in our drought ravaged county so it was club ride day, it was a bit chilly with the threat of sunshine so I risked three quarters and arm warmers and gilet, layers, you have to love layers. A big turnout again at the rugby club and a chance to put faces to names, meet new ones and receive some nice comments about the blog and we all wrote some goodwill messages to Fred who had a serious accident recently, get well soon Fred.
The groups split up again and I tagged onto familiar faces from my last ride, because I hadn't been out with them for a couple of weeks they thought I'd been frightened away so I think they were glad to see me. We headed off through Dunster and Wootton Courtenay and through the back lanes to Porlock, I normally do parts of this route in the opposite direction so the ups were downs, you get the gist. I was feeling quite good to and was putting that bit more effort in on the lumpy bits to try and stay with the group. A stop in Porlock for coffee at the
Lorna Doone hotel, no romantic heroines to meet us but the chairman and the slower group and hot coffee and chatting about all things cycling.
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| Any old iron........ |
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| Porlock in the sunshine...... |
It was then up the toll road in the warm sunshine, a bit of a rarity, its a find a gear and spin up hill, nothing too steep but four miles long. The group started to pull away as we made our way up, I was huffing and puffing a bit and feeling quite slow but looking at my stats after the ride it was my quickest ascent so far knocking three minutes off my last ride. It was then time for a bit of off roading to circumnavigate the sticky climb onto the Exford road from Whitstone Post, interestingly two of the group were riding cross bikes and took the road route whilst the rest of us went water filled crater hopping. On the top of the moors now and it was lovely as we made out way down to Exford and the climb out and down to Luckwell Bridge and up and onwards to Wheddon Cross. It was then down the great descent to Timberscombe, the other riders were descending a lot quicker and pushing the gears were I was freewheeling, but I was enjoying it. Onto the flat through Timberscombe, a couple of riders doing a sportive passed us so I went to the front of our little group and tagged onto them through Dunster, the group fragmented and everyone must have turned for home in whatever direction so apologies for not saying farewell but thanks for a great ride out.
| Distance: | 36.55 mi |
| Time: | 3:11:21 |
| Avg Speed: | 11.5 mph |
| Elevation Gain: | 3,735 ft |
I think riding with other more knowledgeable and really friendly riders is helping my riding no end, just the little hand signals for pot holes and the like and watching their technique when descending is really helping me improve and three minutes off a four mile climb, well that's just brilliant. Will be working for the next few Sundays which is a shame but roll on the next Sunday off.
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