The prospect of a “lumpy” ride meant a fairly small group of us setting off from the Legion, on a beautiful route out to Tittesworth Reservoir via Congleton. Unfortunately for me the group consisted entirely of good climbers, so I was last up every hill, but I tried to focus on staying positive and everyone was very nice about waiting. We shot to the cafe, arriving at 11.30, and then shot back home, via Gun Hill, Danebridge and Wincle, and Lower Withington, arriving back at 2.30 – I ended up with 102km on my clock, 1126 metres of climbing, 4 hours of riding and an average speed of 25.4km/hr. Sorry this is metric, when I know you all prefer imperial, but this is from Strava which I’ve just discovered! Any despondency I may have felt at being the slowest up the climbs was offset by the fact that I was Queen of the Mountains on ss 3 (I’ll leave you guessing as to what ss 3 is, it’s only a 1.1km segment with a 1% gradient but I’ll take it!) and got about 20 gold cups – when I investigated a few of these I should say a certain Carol Robson featured very heavily in the upper echelons of many of them – Carol, I’m impressed!
Anyway enough of my Strava prowess. With me were Jules and Kev leading; new boy Ian who is not only a fantastic climber but can track stand too; another new rider, Paul, who also did brilliantly – plus Colin W, Paul G and Tim R. Watching Ian and Tim climbing, whilst chatting and clearly not breathing at all, was quite something!
So – a great ride, through beautiful scenery, and although it was a bit wet to start with it soon dried up. We had no punctures or mechanicals which made a nice change; and we were all back in time to watch Tony Martin nail today’s Tour stage. Thanks to Jules and Kev for leading, and to everyone else for your patience, chat and good humour.
At Cote de Gun Hill