Exhausting Wind!
What with the change in the clocks and generally being pretty tired, I didn’t set off at the crack of dawn for this one. If I had, I might have had some of the day left by the time I got home.
The route was through Newcastle, and then off into the hills around Consett . . . but the wind was nothing short of brutal. It was pretty much right in my face for the first 35 miles, or on the three descents in that section, gusting across enough to make me want to tip-toe down them in order to keep the bike going anything like straight.
My average speed for this section was just 11.2mph (slow enough for a DNF at Ironman 
), and at one point I was on the flat, tucked over the handlebars, in first gear, giving it everything I had just to crawl along at 5mph.
That should have meant that for the last 25 miles, I had it behind me. It seems that it doesn’t work like that though - the trees in the valley from Shotley Bridge seemed to screen me from any assistance, and then I seemed to catch every single set of lights all the way home from the bottom of the Scottswood Road.
All this conspired to me spending just over five hours in the saddle. Bah.
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 03/28/2010
- Total Time: 4:37:00.00
- Calories: 3371
- Distance: 62.5 miles
- Average Speed: 13.54 mph
