It is all happening again! At the beginning of this year, on the first club run of the year I got a right pasting and ended up riding the last 15 miles home on my own totally blown. Up Gorcot for the very first time. Crawling up at 6mph in 42x21, those kind of experiences are etched on the memory. This week was not dissimilar in the time spent alone, but this time I was much more in control.
This was the second of the split runs. Dave led the B run this week. The destination was Fladbury. We had for a change a very young group, in fact I was nearly the oldest. We started out over a very hilly first few miles including a ride up the hill to be used for the club hill climb. It is very hard. I think I might time keep this year.
Steve Coombes was not feeling the best and decided today was not his day and went home after the hills. The rest of the route was fairly flat but there was a stiff breeze that made things hard work on the way out. In fact Beans (recovering from flu) was really struggling. The cafe arrived just in time for him, and me actually. We managed slightly longer with the A run this week, but it was still a flying visit.
The run home was wind assisted and young, very young Phil was dragging us all along. I am trying to increase my cadence at the moment and was trying not to go above 42x16. At the speed Phil was going that was quite hard. In fact at times I did not quite manage it.
After Dave turned off to Redditch things did not slow down. I let them go as we went on the drags up towards Gorcot. They all looked like they kept it together as they were just in sight as I went up Gorcot. I was happy enough. Went up Gorcot at a reasonable pace, but just not as fast as everyone else seems to be going at the moment. Very familiar feeling.