Update 12 May 2012

Weather has been better this week so got out for a short blast on Tuesday after work - was sunny and warm although with a strong wind - however the choice of route meant that most Strava segments had a tail wind. As a result I managed to move up a place on the Poolhead Lane segment to 3rd and get a PR on the B4108 Hockley Heath which was 1 place. I then tried really hard on Box Trees Short Leg Blast and only managed 5th - almost no change, and sat up for the Box Trees Rd, Four Ashes Road stretch as I wanted to push on Widney Manor Downhill. However I found that on this longer segment I had gained a massive 20 seconds and moved in 2nd Place - stunning!! It just goes to show that you can't always tell what sort of time you are going to get until its done. On this ride I cycled 6 segments and improved position, time or both on all of them. However the best outcome of this ride was the overall average speed of 19.7mph (according to Strava, 19.8 according to Garmin) which is my fastest ever - over any distance. This I think is what I was most pleased about.

Weather and work commitments coincided on Friday so I was able to cycle to work for the first time since Good Friday. It was still windy as I got a what I think is the fastest ever time and average speed (58:54 and 18.7mph), plus 3 segment improvements. Someone has created a similar segment to my Cornets End Lane segment and extended it over the crossroads by about another 0.5mile to the "highest" point on that route - improved on my segment to 3rd and got the KOM on the new one. Top Ride! However the ride home was punishing into the headwind and it was probably the slowest ever.

Good weather still today (Saturday) so went for a quick trip again - main aim was to try to push a bit harder on Vicarage Hill in Tanworth in Arden, go up Camp Lane again for the first time for about a month and also try the Dyers Drag segment. On the former I did make a small time increase but still behind Noel. Camp Lane was as bad as I remembered, and I lost a few seconds because a tree was down across the road - but I did pull out  a 30 second improvement. I also wanted to push on the Bushwood Lane Segment and again improved (and pulled back ahead of Noel by a few seconds as well) - a problem with this segment is that it crosses the busy A34 so there is an element of pot-luck in getting a good time as you might have to wait to cross the road. On the Dyers Drag segment I moved into 3rd place which was good as I had never ridden it before - although where Dave got the KOM time from I don't know.

Over the week I made a lot of improvements to previous times and positions so feel there is evidence of an improvement in my performance. Unfortunately someone new has joined Strava an uploaded a lot of thier historical routes and taken several KOM away - this includes St Alphege Hill which I was very annoyed about and am back down to 5 KOM as of today

Update 7 May 2012

The weather was actually acceptable on and off over the last week. I went out on the Wednesday 2 May after work for a short spin on the Focus (16 miles) to take in a number of segments. Got KOM for "St Alphege Hill" (by ~2 secs), "Widney Lane Blast" which was a dead heat with Scott Wharton, second on "Widney Manor Uphill" and second on "Watery Eyes Warm Up" which I had to go back for after Dave Brown stole the segment off me. For the latter I made another improvement of 5 seconds but was still 2 seconds behind Dave (who'd gone out specifically to get that segment!). I was very pleased with the ride which is here:

 

The weather was Ok for both the Saturday and Sunday. On the Saturday I did a 46 mile loop taking in some more segments and made a number of reasonable times - got a big improvement on the "Forde Hall Lane South" segment (now that I know it's there!) of over  seconds and moved into 2nd place out of 35 or so,  so that was a good improvement. Average speed for the ride was 17.6 which was none to shabby.

Went out again on Sunday and very quickly realised how tired my legs were so tried to be sensible. I  rode down to Stratford which is always fast as its generally downhill and I think a following wind and then worked back. On the way back my legs were very tired but was pleased with an average speed of 17.7, plus some unexpected improvements on some segments.