Distance: 72 miles. Elevation: 2209 ft.
Another club run with the Sunday Intermediates. The day started off cloudy but the sun broke through later for a while. Roughly 14-16°C. I wore my arm warmers for the first leg of the ride, but took them off after the café stop, but it wasn’t as warm as I thought and I wished I had them back on again. Guess I may as well concede that Summer is over and it’s time for long sleeves!
I had fitted a 12-30T cassette to my Colnago the day before, to make sure I wouldn’t get caught out on the hills again. However, today’s route turned out to be extremely flat, taking in the Vale of Kent and bits of Romney Marsh.
I decided to cycle to the start this morning instead of driving. When I got to Marden, the group had just set off, so it was good timing. A minute later and I would have missed them! There were eight of us out today and we rode at a good pace of over 17 mph despite a constant fresh westerly breeze. We stopped for food at a garden centre in Ham Street. Scrambled eggs on toast was the popular choice of the day!
The pace on the return journey was even more frantic, at 18.2 mph back to Marden, again with that breeze hindering us much of the time. The average speeds of the Sunday club runs are steadily increasing, it seems, and are now often significantly higher than the 14-16 mph that’s advertised as the norm for this group. This is no doubt helped by the younger riders that have been attending. While these higher averages are nice for those that can manage them, I feel there is a danger that it could deter some members who would otherwise choose to ride with this group.
An enjoyable ride!
Ride notes:
Don’t take your arm-warmers off too early
Remember to re-start the timer on your Garmin when you start riding back
It will save you 90minutes+ of rebuilding the ride data in Excel later!
