Tuesday 27 March 2012

34/366

Took advantage of the good weather again and took a ride out into the Peak District for the first time this year.  There is something totally different about heading off into Derbyshire and it's hills for a bike ride, it feels like a 'proper' ride.  I'm not a good climber at all but love to challenge myself on the hills.  Local ones like Cloves and Drum are good testers but nothing great.  In fact Cloves today felt dead easy, probably due to the fact that the last time I climbed it I was a good 1.5 stone heavier than today.

The first real testers were Spanker Lane closely followed by Holly Lane.  Spanker is OK, it just has a steep section about half way, Holly however kicks you in the guts right at the start, you turn left off the bridge and bang, it's there, just enough time to scramble through the gears, by the time you reach the right hand bend 100 meters in it really kicks off, a steep gradient for about 300 meters.  Stay seated your pulling wheelies so you have to stand whether you like it or not, once you reach the junction on your left the gradient slacks a little, but your only about 10% of the way up the hill, the remainder is quite pleasant though after what you've just been through.

Onto Wirksworth, this section up to Carsington is probably my favourite part of the ride.... the climb up West End out of Wirksworth is lovely, a good climb, not the longest but up through the houses that sit really close to the road, turn the corner, your only half way but now it's back in beautiful countryside.  The ride home from Carsington is mostly back downhill to Kedleston where a couple of kicks up and a lovely downhill see you in Little Eaton facing Drum Hill, as said before, a good tester but not really a hard hill, that is until you do it at the end of a peak ride... that was my thoughts last year.  This year it is much easier.  I'm so glad to have shed some timber as David Harmon might say, but does make the hills a much more pleasant experience, I just can't wait to get back out into the Peak.

Carsington Water in the distance



Distance = 95.6 km
Time = 3 hrs 59 mins
Ave Speed = 23.9 kph

2012
Road Bike = 1118.1 km
Indoor = 313.5 km
Ran = 141.5 km
Total = 1573.1 km

Once home and showered (me and the bike) I had a go at starting to strip and clean the wheels off the peugeot, undecided whether to use them on the project or not, either way they need cleaning up as they will get sold if not used.  Good news from Mercian, they can supply the correct graphics for the pug if I go to them for the respray, so that's one quality option open to me.

Went to see Sister Act at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham tonight, I wasn't entirely looking forward to it if I'm honest but a good performance was made and I came away pleasantly surprised.  For all the shows we go to see in London,  the local option although not as much of a spectacle does provide a quicker more cost effective 'fix' due to the lack of travel and overnight costs.

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