We have been on holiday for a week in Suffolk - near the villages of Botesdale and Rickinghall to be precise. We have been staying in a relatively new holiday cottage here - very pleasant and relaxing and well equipped. We brought the bikes so that I, my son, and my wife could do some cycling. Here's a link to all three bikes on the car: linky
I was not sure what the cycling was like around the area. A quick look on Strava showed a very low number of local segments so I was not sure whether cycling was not popular, whether cycling was popular but not many people used Strava, or whether cycling was popular but there were no hills at all and Suffolk residents were sensible and realised that there ought to be at least some gradient to justify a proper segment.
The plan was to run off a few possible routes of about 30 miles and see how it went. If I cycled I'd aim for a reasonably early start so as not to use the whole day selfishly on the bike and to keep the distance to 30-35 miles max. Not knowing the area at all I would actually use the navigation option on my Garmin 800, and as with the trip down to Sussex over the May Bank Holiday weekend I'd use Garmin Connect to create the route and download to my 800.
I found Garmin Connect pretty poor a year or so ago but recently have found the route planning, creation and downloading to the device much improved.
Day 1
Here's the route for the first day (Sunday) that I and my son planned to ride:
And here's the corresponding Strava link:
The first thing to notice is that they are not the same! The problem was that we turned onto a road and the Garmin got very confused. It clearly thought that we weren't on the road and after about 400m we came to a junction - I had no idea where to go and made what turned out to be the wrong decision. However about 200m up the wrong route it "found" the route again and after a few seconds recalculated and off we went. However what it was re-calculating was how to get to the end and so after about 15 miles we were back on the run to the cottage. I'd assumed that it would try to get us to the route but was mistaken.
Given that this had taken us only 50 minutes or so we decided to re-ride the route we'd just done but a bit further on decided to ride the original planned route - which would be I estimated about 50 miles. The route turned out to be OK - pretty flat and reasonably quite roads - we managed a 30 minute stretch cruising at 20mph or so with a vaguely helpful tailwind. Total time 2h41m for 49 miles - an average of 18.1mph - not too bad and helps with 2 people sharing the load.
After almost 50 miles I was astounded to see that the route had only 5 segments - confirming the preliminary review before we left.
Day 2
On the second day my son did not want to get up as early as I did so I rode solo - I repeated the shorter loop from the day before, but as I was not following my Garmin missed a turn somewhere and made a slight change to the route. On the return I also rode fully through the villages of Botesdale and Rickinghall and by chance saw what might actually pass for a "hill" in the area, so I gave it some beans. I also went pretty hard on the "Redgrave Road Race" segment and pulled a 3rd out of the bag.
Here is the route:
I was astounded that the "hill" was not a segment so to my shame I created it. Here it is:
After all the updating I came out a 3rd so was surprised and pleased.
Day 3
My son had indicated he'd come with me this morning but declined when I woke him at ~8am, so I went solo again - this time I headed east from the cottage on a ~40 mile route, here:
Plan A was an attack on the segment I'd created the day before and with legs just warm enough and fully fresh I blitzed the KOM. A good tail wind outward bound saw an average speed at around 19.5mph up to the turn back, but what gives must take away and I struggled to maintain any real pace anywhere on the return leg, dropping down to an overall average of 18.3mph. This is still OK and I am pleased with my progress but would have liked a higher speed. I also think that I was starting to feel the burn of all the miles over the past week.
I also pulled a 5th on this segment:
Sometimes its good not to ride on known routes as you don't know where the segments are and just ride at a "natural" pace. 4.3 miles is a reasonable length (although it was almost pan-flat) and so 5th was good, even if only of 13 people.
Day 4
On day 4 I did not ride in the morning as I felt mildly tired (see above) in fact we had a proper holiday day and did almost nothing in the morning, then had lunch and drove a few miles to a local nature reserve around a local Fen. This was a very pleasant 1.5hrs. When we got back I suggested a short ride with my son - the proposal was to re-ride Day 2.
Within the first few miles I knew it was going to be hard. I struggled to keep on my sons back wheel for the first 1/2 of the ride and then just managed to stay there for the rest. We also went to my "Rectory Hill, Rickinghall" segment where my son stole if from me by a big 4 seconds, so I'd managed to keep it for less than 36 hours!
Here's the route:
I was glad to get back from this ride!
Day 5
I was awake and bright eyed and bushy tailed for a ride this morning - mainly because getting up for an 8am start for 45 weeks of the year for 25 years is a bad habit to get out of in just a few days. However despite a sunny appearance out the windows a more careful look showed it was pretty misty and misty = cool. So I had a more leisurely breakfast and didn't get out until about 9.30. My legs were less tired than the night before and whilst the pace wasn't great it was better than I had expected. Here's the route:
Got a couple of PRs but all in a nice ride.
So far this week I have been lucky enough to be able to cycle every day in good weather as well. My Cyclist's Tan:
has been topped up nicely.
Given that I have cycled every day it seems that I should have done more than 110 miles by today but the rides have not been massive so perhaps that's OK.
The local scenery has been very pleasant, and the roads quiet (as long as you do a little careful route preparation). We've seen many attractive villages in the area.
It's also pretty flat. Not Norfolk flat but there are no hills to speak of. I have never even thought of using or needed to use the 34T chain ring and only used the 21 (3rd) tooth cassette gear twice for about 100m each time when my legs were tired near the end of a ride. I have been able to roll along in the 5/6/7 cassette gear more much of the time, so the style of riding is quite different to that of the Midlands.
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