February 13th: After two weeks of cold, wet, windy weather an area of high pressure has settled over the UK and I could finally get out for a ride! I took Awesom-O out to do the usual and ended up having a rather strange start to my ride. As I was cycling up the bypass, I saw two guys on mountain bikes heading towards me riding two abreast. I was sure they would see me and move into single file so I squeezed to the left of the path to make room. As it turned out, they didn't move into single file and the right hand of one of them crashed into my right arm as we passed. The guy let out a rather startled "OOF!" so I suspect, rather than anything malicious, he just hadn't been watching where he was going. Anyhow, no one came off so I carried on going expecting a reasonable bruise on my arm in the morning. The ride itself was fine, a barn owl swooped across the path ahead of me which was cool, and it was reasonably warm at around 8 °C without much wind and my legs felt pretty reasonable despite the enforced break. 25.1 miles to finally start February off.
February 15th: It was a bit of an unusual ride today. My colleague Adam and I were doing a big office reshuffle at work so we decided to start at lunchtime and work into the evening. This left the morning free so I took Awesom-O out to do the usual. As a bit of an experiment, I had a pizza for breakfast just before I set out to see how it would affect how I felt on the ride. Anyhow, it was cold. The BBC weather site said it would be 5 °C rising to 8 °C but it felt a lot colder when I set off. Other than the cold, it was a gorgeous late winter day with blue skies and the sun feeling quote warm.
The wind ruined it slightly with a pretty consistent southerly wind that didn't let up at all. The wind, combined with riding straight after a meal, meant I never really felt like I got going properly and it wasn't the most enjoyable ride ever. It was tempered slightly by another cool wild life encounter though. As I was doing the last 'down', something made me look up to my left and there was a young buzzard flying along side me and we look at each other for a few seconds as we paralleled each other which was really cool. Anyhow, I only noticed when updating my spreadsheet that this was the ride that took Awesom-O over the 5,000 mile mark and another 25.0 miles for February.
February 21st: After weeks of crappy weather, it was a rather amazing 15 °C today so I was looking forward to getting out for a spin on Awesom-O after work. The temperature was around 9 or 10 C so I wore the Castelli Alpha over my merino for the first time in ages and set out. I did two ups and downs of the farm path and then got bored so I did a loop of the time trialler's loop, taking in an up and down of Church Lane to add some distance and then came home first via the kebab shop (ahem...) and then my parents house to collect some deliveries (it was interesting trying to fit nine Veloforte bars, a pot of wood filler and five bottles of Marie Sharp's Fiery Habanero Sauce into my small cycling rucksack) and onto home for 24.0 miles.
February 23rd: Today's ride was something of a milestone, the temperature was around 15 °C so it was the first ride of the year in short bibs! I shaved my legs before the ride and, although I'm not a particularly hairy bloke, the bath looked like someone had shaved a monkey in it afterwards. Anyhow, it hasn't rained for a while so I fired up the slow cooker and re-waxed the Strael's chain before the ride as I couldn't remember what state the chain was in lube-wise since I'd last done it. Anyhow, I set off and although it was warm, it was overcast and very windy so not as enjoyable ride as I'd been anticipating.
I wore the Castelli over my merino underlayer and I struggled to stay cool enough. It wasn't helped by my Lusso shorts. They've got a few thousand miles on them and my bum was feeling it for most of the ride so I Googled the matter and I've ordered some Orro bib shorts which the road.cc review said were awesome for people who's bums can suffer on longer rides. They were less than a hundred quid, I find two hundred pound plus cycling shorts bemusing, so I'll review them when they arrive. Anyhow, a slightly less pleasant than expected 26.7 miles.
Well, some less than stellar weather and the stressy week from hell at work meant I didn't manage to get out again this month so February goes out with rather poor mileage of 100.8. Is it nearly summer yet?
February 15th: It was a bit of an unusual ride today. My colleague Adam and I were doing a big office reshuffle at work so we decided to start at lunchtime and work into the evening. This left the morning free so I took Awesom-O out to do the usual. As a bit of an experiment, I had a pizza for breakfast just before I set out to see how it would affect how I felt on the ride. Anyhow, it was cold. The BBC weather site said it would be 5 °C rising to 8 °C but it felt a lot colder when I set off. Other than the cold, it was a gorgeous late winter day with blue skies and the sun feeling quote warm.
The wind ruined it slightly with a pretty consistent southerly wind that didn't let up at all. The wind, combined with riding straight after a meal, meant I never really felt like I got going properly and it wasn't the most enjoyable ride ever. It was tempered slightly by another cool wild life encounter though. As I was doing the last 'down', something made me look up to my left and there was a young buzzard flying along side me and we look at each other for a few seconds as we paralleled each other which was really cool. Anyhow, I only noticed when updating my spreadsheet that this was the ride that took Awesom-O over the 5,000 mile mark and another 25.0 miles for February.
February 21st: After weeks of crappy weather, it was a rather amazing 15 °C today so I was looking forward to getting out for a spin on Awesom-O after work. The temperature was around 9 or 10 C so I wore the Castelli Alpha over my merino for the first time in ages and set out. I did two ups and downs of the farm path and then got bored so I did a loop of the time trialler's loop, taking in an up and down of Church Lane to add some distance and then came home first via the kebab shop (ahem...) and then my parents house to collect some deliveries (it was interesting trying to fit nine Veloforte bars, a pot of wood filler and five bottles of Marie Sharp's Fiery Habanero Sauce into my small cycling rucksack) and onto home for 24.0 miles.
February 23rd: Today's ride was something of a milestone, the temperature was around 15 °C so it was the first ride of the year in short bibs! I shaved my legs before the ride and, although I'm not a particularly hairy bloke, the bath looked like someone had shaved a monkey in it afterwards. Anyhow, it hasn't rained for a while so I fired up the slow cooker and re-waxed the Strael's chain before the ride as I couldn't remember what state the chain was in lube-wise since I'd last done it. Anyhow, I set off and although it was warm, it was overcast and very windy so not as enjoyable ride as I'd been anticipating.
I wore the Castelli over my merino underlayer and I struggled to stay cool enough. It wasn't helped by my Lusso shorts. They've got a few thousand miles on them and my bum was feeling it for most of the ride so I Googled the matter and I've ordered some Orro bib shorts which the road.cc review said were awesome for people who's bums can suffer on longer rides. They were less than a hundred quid, I find two hundred pound plus cycling shorts bemusing, so I'll review them when they arrive. Anyhow, a slightly less pleasant than expected 26.7 miles.
Well, some less than stellar weather and the stressy week from hell at work meant I didn't manage to get out again this month so February goes out with rather poor mileage of 100.8. Is it nearly summer yet?
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