Well after a week with a stupid tummy bug I finally started to feel a little bit more normal today but not enough to do a big ride, so I kept it to a small one, I certainly didn’t want to not ride at all though A small quick ride to Cumbernauld and back and I’ll live with that. Next week I’ll be starting my China ride so this and maybe, depending on the weather, rides through the week will be my last training rides.
So after riding a good 5 years on my SPD cleats and pedals I decided it was time to try some proper road shoes, since I’m riding more my road bike than my mountain bike. So last week I bought some Garmin Vector 2 pedals and a pair of Sidi Kaos Road shoes cost me a fortune but the pedals do have power meters on them. I’ve never used Sidi shoes and today’s ride was my first ride with them. I kept the ride to a short one as I’m not sure how my body is going to react to this change but this mornings ride went without a hitch and I never fell off my bike which is a good thing The statistics the power meters give you is a bit over whelming but interesting and compared to my Bontrager shoes the Sidi ones are as good if not better, they allow for a bit more tightening around the foot. It’s still early days with these shoes and pedals but I certainly like what I feel :-D. Weather wise today was a bit dull with a few spats of rain but little wind so although today’s ride wasn’t the fastest it was still quite quick.
Ride 27/08/2016 Loch Earn Loop
Well thats my first 100 miles of the year and what a nice ride it was. The weather was quite good today, a little overcast but with sunshine intermixed in and most importantly little wind. Decided I would do a loop around Loch Earn, something I had planned to do a couple of years ago but never really got around to it. Riding through the country side and Trossachs is a very beautiful place to ride especially when your cycling through the mountains. And given I did reasonably fast 100 miles I don’t feel too bad
Bit of a dull wet windy day, but better than yesterdays weather hence the ride today. Decided to ride to Loch Lomond, it’s been a while since I was there and wanted to do it at least once this year. Had lunch at Loch Lomond but of course once I finished it started to rain not too heavy but enough to make me wet through, thankfully it stopped after about 45 mins, and held off at least until I got to Kirkintilloch. So it was rain all the way to Denny where I popped into my Uncles and accidentally reset the Garmin clock which is why there are 2 activities listed today. Thankfully by the time I got back to Falkirk the sun came out and I carried on cycling until I broke 90 miles. So the stats are 92.6 miles in 5 hours and 59 mins at an avg speed of 15.6mph.
A rather wet and windy day with some sporadic sunshine, was planning to go to Crieff but then the rain came down and I had no wet gear with me. So I detoured towards Glen Eagles and headed back over the Ochils through Glendevon down to Dollar and Alva. Thankfully by the time I hit Dollar the rain had stopped so I stopped for lunch and then headed home.
It’s quit a nice day, I even got sun burnt on this ride so I decided to do the Full Ochils Loop which ironically is only around 20 miles longer than the half loop that I did last week I even managed to time it well that it started to rain just as I got home so lucked out their. 6 weeks left to my China ride so will keep up the miles until then
Bit of a mixed bag weather wise, cloud, sun and wind but nothing to drastic, so did my Ochils Half Loop.
It’s a nice day a bit overcast but warm and I didn’t have anywhere in particular to go. So did a quick loop into Kirkliston, South Queensferry and back.
Bit of a dull windy day so I planned a ride to the Glasgow end of the Union Canal, I’ve been to the Edinburgh end, but not the Glasgow end. Now having never ridden this before I was relying on my garmin course, but unbeknownst to me the course would take me on some serious off road cross country routes, which would not do with my road bike!. If I had my mountain bike I could have saved myself a 10 mile detour but I didn’t and thus I had to do some backtracking and try another way of getting there, hence the funny route I took. Anyway I made it in the end and I would have gone back the way I had came if it were possible but I opted to go via the Canal some of the way and once I hit Kilsyth I was back on the road.
A dull wet day so did a sprint around the forth river. Had no wet gear with me so I had my foot down all the way round as I was getting wet, hence this is the fasted forth loop I’ve ever done
Well it started out as a dull day but again after lunch it got sunny. Decided to ride to Prestonpans, I’ve never been there before and it’s a coastal ride which is quite scenic. It’s a flat ride with a little wind on the coast but all and all a pleasant days ride.