Longest Ride of the Year so far

For Sunday 19 May Noel suggested that we ride to Evesham. Its quite a long round trip for us ~65 miles or so so almost 4 hours on a slow day. I asked that we start at 8.30 so I was not too late home - my wife is still recuperating and disappearing all morning is not something I want to be doing too often at the moment.

Come 8.30 Sunday the weather was bright sunshine with almost no wind. It was not quite warm enough that early for short sleeves so I wore my arm warmers with the aim of not needing them for too long. They came off at Great Alne.

Our route to Evesham from Solihull is Earlswood, Tanworth In Arden, Ullenhall, Little Alne, Great Alne, Alcester, Arrow, Bidford on Avon, Cleeve Prior and then Evesham. The return leg is Harvington, Dunnington, Cookhill, Astwood Bank and then Tardebigge, Alvechurch and Wythall.

The route is here:


Evesham is at 35 miles and is down hill all the way:

Unfortunately what goes down must go up and the drag back is tiring - especially as an imperceptible tailwind became a noticeable headwind back.

Noel's "plod" down was at a much higher pace than I had expected and we had 18.4mph by the time we got to Evesham. As Noel set the pace down I had had quite a sheltered ride so took my turn at the front for the return run. The first small climb out of Evesham was far tougher than I had expected and I knew then that we were in for a tough ride. Evesham to Astwood Bank is a long drag almost always with an incline and is very tiring. The other problem is that from Astwood Bank there is no easy way back without a noticeable climb somewhere. I managed to keep an adequate pace back at ~16-17mph to Astwood Bank but we both dropped the pace off to Scarfield Hill, and I spent several miles in the little (wimp) front ring to take the load off my legs around Ham Green and Elcocks Brook and save some energy for Weatheroak Hill. Weatheroak Hill proved to be as hard as ever after ~60 miles, but knowing that that this was the last climb once we crested the top we got some pace in back home.

This was the longest ride this year - I had not done more than 50 miles so far and I really felt it for the last 10-15 miles and for a few hours afterwards. At 133.3 miles for the week it is also (just) the highest mileage for a week this year as well, so a reasonable achievement.

This year has proven to nothing like the previous 3 years mileage - I am about 500 miles down compared to these years, but given the weather and my wife's illness I have not done badly. I think that 5000 miles this year will be a very hard challenge unless we have an excellent summer and mild and dry autumn and winter. We'll have to see.