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My usual Friday early morning ride this morning started with a soaking – a heavy downpour just as I set off from the house at 5:15. It certainly woke me up but thankfully stopped a few minutes later. My rear brake doesn’t work for some reason but at least the mudguards haven’t fallen off yet. I’m starting to feel good on every ride now, which is in complete contrast to the bad/good/puking/good/bad routine of a few weeks ago so overall I’m happy.

Normally I only go for a long run on Saturday but tomorrow I’ll be out on the HTN course, maybe with a bike, cutting trees back and stuff so I might get some more miles on the bike for January, but basically that’s it now. Just over 300. Good job it’s only January.

After a quick change of clothes in the bike room at work, I set off at 6 for Macclesfield via the High Peak – Oldham to Glossop to Hayfield, etc. It was dark, wet but not too cold and not windy so it was gonna be ace.

Just before Stalybridge I stopped at some lights at the same time as a bloke on a nice Lemond. There’s a big climb that goes on for a fair bit in Staly before you drop down into Mottram. I don’t think I’ve ever climbed it so fast, my new friend appeared to be capitalising on my (rather surprising) climbing prowess by drafting me all the way up, then we were riding fast through the traffic in Glossop. That was brilliant. Not much can beat fast road riding, tight up to someone else’s wheel.

A quick energy bar stop in Hayfield after the horror that is Chunal (the big hill out of Glossop) and then off again through Whaley Bridge and then the second horror climb up to Pott Shrigley. Just over 40 miles – soaked and tired but what a brilliant ride. Long rides are officially BACK.

It’s not looking likely that I’ll do a century ride in January, despite me picking up Trio’s gauntlet at the start of the year. Bit of a bummer really, but logistics have been difficult this month, oh and there was the weekend where I got all panicky about some weather.  My January mileage will be about 350 at best. Pathetic.

Anyhoo, I’m still doing the belated Christmas Cracker sportive on Sunday and that’s over 100 miles…but it’s on the 1st Feb. I’m up in Scotland a couple of weeks after that, so perhaps I can ride back…? That’s a double century, that is. I’ll probably have to drive the van back though.

If I can do more than one century in Feb (perhaps 3) then maybe I won’t get disqualified for a first offence

Nice ride on the “bobble hat bike” last night though, apart from the ride down Bradshaw Rd from Affetside. It’s so rough that it made my rear Dinotte disconnect from the battery. Definately better as a climb that one.

EDIT: The Sportive on Sunday isn’t 100 miles after all – dunno if they’ve altered it but looks like I might need to leave the car 20 miles from the start!

I swapped the knobbly tyres for road slicks and put the full guards back on the ‘cross bike earlier this week so that I can ride in all weathers and stay relatively dry and comfortable for the remainder of the winter. Having said that, last night’s howling wind made last night’s ride less than comfy

I know it doesn’t look very cool (but tights, overshoes and an orange jacket don’t look cool either) but it makes me want to ride further so that’s officially A Good Thing. It’ll stay like this until early summer now.

Only a shortish ride yesterday, despite my plans for bigger things I gathered some good karma and did some jobs around the house instead. I think the re-planned century ride will be North Wales-bound so that I can incorporate a visit to an uncle that I’ve not seen in ages.

During yesterday’s ride I popped over to Bombhole Woods, scene of much carnage in Hit the North. The Scouts, who own this part of the course, have covered a lot of the trail with logs. They’ve certainly closed the most dangerous parts anyway. Good job really – it seems that our race exposed a number of trails that were little-used and not that well known. Since the race, people have continued to ride the course and parts of it, such as these woods, are suffering. The parts that are not covered in logs are covered in fresh tyre tracks and big ruts. It’s never going to recover enough for us to race on it again in fact, so hopefully the logs will reduce the traffic a bit.

As a reminder of how awesomely slippery Bombhole Woods can be in the wet, I slammed into the ground on the first 5 metres after leaving the campsite.

the weather forecasts today are telling me that the high winds that are currently blasting outside are going to continue and get worse all night and into tomorrow. 60mph gusts are expected around here, so I’m rethinking my century ride strategy….I’ll probably get the mountain bike out and “stay low” and preferably off the roads. Next weekend will hopefully be more suitable. I know I should just toughen up, but hey ho. I’d rather avoid 60mph headwinds on the road bike if possible.

It looks like the “lucky few” racing this weekend at the Strathpuffer 24 are going to get battered by a full-on hurricane and blizzards. I wish I was there. honest.

EDIT: Another BBC stitch-up. No wind AT ALL this morning. I didn’t bother fixing the road bike yesterday as I was expecting trees to be falling over and stuff. Bah.

Youtube removed the audio from the Hit the North 1 vid, so how about this?

Click here

Early ride this morning, 5am start, usual road route, nothing unusual happened. Still feeling good (yay), felt fast, WAS fast

I definately didn’t need overshoes, a jacket, long sleeve jersey and winter gloves though. It was a tropical 8 degrees!

The BB on the road bike is creaking like a bugger. I’ll have to sort that or it’ll drive me insane on Sunday. Thanks for the route advice on the previous post – I think I’m going to do the short Pendle Pedal route – this, plus the ride to and from the loop will give me about 110 hilly miles. If anyone wants to join in, I’m setting off at 5…

I really, really enjoyed last night’s ride. This is the last time I’ll mention being ill for what seemed like an eternity because I think it’s getting quite boring but last night was the first time in ages, certainly since I started to feel crap, that I was loving riding my bike. Surprising really, as the milder temperature has returned my usual route to the traditional winter quagmire.

Probably as a result of my optimistic mood I felt physically stronger than I have done in ages too. I even cleaned the steep climb past Roger’s flat up to the start of Trim The Bush*

It’s all good again.

Anyway – I’ve got a road century planned for Sunday but I’ve not decided on a route. I was thinking of going West towards the coast and making it mainly flat or heading North to Horton in Ribblesdale and back, taking in the Nick of Pendle on the way. Or perhaps East over the border into Yorkshire….or South to the Peak District and into Cheshire.

What would YOU do?

*it’s a longish story