Windy today init!!

I'm really looking forward to Saturdays North Cheshire Clarions club run after last weeks successful jaunt but I'm being plagued by knee pain from Mondays physio and whilst I didn't think it would have a major impact there is a bit of a blustery wind knocking about and that combined with my dodgy knee plants a seed of doubt in my mind. Saturday morning comes along and I look out of my bedroom window to see my tree windometer indicating very windy - I dive back into bed.

A couple of hours later I'm up and itching to get out. My backup plan was simply to play out on my lonesome where I wouldn't hold anyone up and if anything plays up I can about turn and head for home without inconveniencing anyone. I also want to test myself on hills and whilst my meander hasn't any steep hills I figured that using my single speed will be a challenge in itself into those 24 mph headwinds and especially on the moderate inclines on my vague route. So off I go with just an idea for a route in my mind, all I wanted was 90 minutes worth of road, but as soon as I turn the first corner and onto that first small hill just around the corner from my house the wind hits me head on and I'm down to a crawl cursing myself thinking that I made a big mistake coming out on my single speed in these conditions. I'm heading into Weston Village now, up towards Runcorn hill and down to a grinding crawl of 7 mph but turn the corner out of the wind and it's up into the 20's on the flat, great fun. The best thing is that my hip isn't complaining too much and as the ride goes on I start to enjoy that tailwind often spinning out at times.

I head out towards Aston but stop short of doing my little loop around Preston on the hill because of that resurfaced road and even though it was resurfaced weeks ago with loose chippings and probably ok now I'm still a wimp scared of falling off and instead head back into Runcorn aimlessly wandering around to get the time in. And what about that wind!!! some descents normally good for coasting down at 25 mph had me coasting down at 15 mph into that flippin wind, going up hill and into the wind often had me out of the seat grinding away. My stats for the day, my average speed in particular of 14mph is a reflection of the windy condition's and I'm also glad to say that today being a hard days grind, yes, I could feel the effort in my hip but it was more of a niggling ache than an ouche ouche ouche mustn't do that again so I'm happy with my progress so far, today was a very telling day, moderate hills and hard efforts are now achievable.

In 5 days I will be 5 months post breaks and I never envisioned doing what I did today so soon...

My Langster

Gratuitous photo's of my Langster with Frodsham Hill as a back drop

The Specialized Langster Steel has no bottle bosses and that's ok if you use this bike on the track or for short journeys but where do I put a bottle when I need to go for a longer ride? I had a browse and found what looks like the solution, a Tacx behind the seat bottle holder and after extensive testing today I can say it works quite well but in solving one problem of where to stick a bottle I've created another - where to put my spare innertube, levers, 15mm spanner and pump? Atm they are in my back pockets but I'm thinking of adding another bottle cage as the Tacx bottle holder is drilled out for two cages and buying a wide necked bottle to put my tools in, that should sort it...

 

My Stats 

21 miles, 1hr 30 mins, Av/Max speed  14/23, Av Hr 148 (77 % max), 890 ft climbing (Garmin)