Off out on a night ride for the first time with some hardcore riders and Damo another nutter from the fire station, met up on an estate in Witney then headed off into the night.
Not had such a blast since I started riding off road, cracking bunch of guys and mostly way better than me so I was pushed almost all the way, only one guy a bit slower than myself so it was a welcome break every now and again while we waited for him.
Headed off over North Witney God only knows where as I did not recognise half of the tracks. The new lights worked a treat although my main light gave up after about 17 miles, but we where on road sections so it didn’t matter that much, don’t think I charged it to the full so I will have to reserve judgement on it until next weeks session.
Hope to be going out again next week if my legs can cope with the pain of it, again I will say, have not been pushed that hard for a long time so it may be a great benefit for me over the winter to push up my stamina.
Great Great Great ride and can’t wait for it to come around again.
Click Link For Route 17.9 Mile Night Ride
Polar Stats:
Average heart: 150 bpm
Calories: 1748
Distance: 17.4 miles
Average speed: 10.3 mph
Ride Time: 01:41:05
38 Mile Cotswold Loop (MTB)
October 12, 2010 — smiddyslifeHaving been slightly lazy over the weekend and filling my face with all sorts of crap at work and at the cycle show in London I decided it may be a good thing to go hell for leather and try and beat my PB for distance on the MTB my previous being about 27 miles.
The weather was great all day so most of my winter gear was redundant for the day thankfully, I was nice and warm all the way which is pretty rare for me as I can freeze in the middle of summer.
Off out toward Burford and into the unknown onto tracks not used before, good old motionx app for iphone is invaluable in circumstances like this it’s a proper off road GPS that works really well given it’s only £1.79, just a quick check now and again keeps me on track and takes a lot of the stress out of the usual navigation problems around these parts, very limited signage in places so it becomes difficult to stay on legal routes.
Headed North toward Bourton on the Water then bearing right picked up the Wychwood way at Milton under wychwood and headed East toward Charlbury and Stonesfield picking up the Salt Way North of Charlbury.
Started to feel the need for some carbs so tucked in to my energy bars that I sourced from the cycle show, bought a bag of bars, gels and energy sweets for a £10 from the Zipvit stand.
Have to admit being the first time I had tried this stuff out it did give me an energy boost, at that point I was struggling a bit, even though my pace was slow I was not used to the distance so I would recommend carrying something like this all the time on longer rides.
From Stonesfield it was a short blast back to Witney and a PB of 38 miles in the bag, very tired and a few aches and pains but on the whole felt pretty good.
Polar stats:
Average heart: 146 bpm
Calories: 4142
Distance 37.8 miles
Average speed: 10 mph
Ride time: 04:17:42