Top Week!

After last weeks catch up post I thought that I'd post a bit sooner this week especially as I had a good week Strava wise. However good intentions went out the window and this has sat in the Drafts folder for another week

I only rode 3 times the prior week. The first ride was late morning on the Wednesday. I had taken the day off to get my broadband updated to BT Infinity and fortunately I was the first visit of the day, so it was done and dusted by about 10.30am so I took the opportunity to go out for a ride afterwards. It was a lot windier that I expected. I had gone out looking for about 20 miles or so at a reasonable pace but the strong head winds at the start made me change my mind slightly as to what I wanted to do. I had decided to have another go at Camp Lane so took a relatively steady ride down through Tanworth in Arden down to Camp Hill and then pushed reasonably hard. From here the wind was slightly more favourable so I decided to have a go at both Dyers Drag and Vicarge Hill Downhill as I was sure that there would be a tailwind on both these segments. Fortunately there was, and on Dyers Drag I absolutely made a 100% effort - I got up to and was keeping at 30mph. I tried to up shift for a bit more speed but did not have the power and had to shift down again almost straight away - this can be seen quite clearly in the segment performance plot. Getting home and uploading the data gave a much better result than I had hoped or expected - KOM on Dyers Drag, KOM on Vicarge Hill Downhill, 2nd overall on station run, 3rd on Camp Lane and 4th on Camp Lane and Irelands Lane. 

The other rides this week were a commute to work and back on the Friday. Firstly, after the weekend run the previous weekend I decided to cycle in through Meriden - its a mile further and there is the challenge of 4-5 new segments. The total climbing is about the same but it tends to be more on the Meriden Hill climb rather then a gradual climb up Back Lane. On the Friday the wind was very favourable into work and I saved myself a little for the 2 Spencer Avenue segments - success and took both of them back with a time about 3 seconds faster than the previous KOM times. In addition the average speed for the commute was a creditable 19.0mph. I'll admit that the wind was very helpful but I'll take whatever is on offer. Obviously on the way home the wind that was so helpful on the way in was painful and the average was down at a relatively slow 16.2mph - no extended return commute this Friday either as needed to get back in a reasonably timely manner.