samuri.co.uk

bike:Vela
Distance: 31 miles

Got up right early (but not early enough for a morning ride), started work at 7 am from home. Worked solid straight through to 1:30, that’s almost a full day right there. Looked outside, sun shining, kitted up and went out for a blast. Had plans of beating my 49mph record down the Rivington road. Up round the back of winter hill with my phone ringing every fucking five minutes. Didn’t bother stopping, just answered the calls with the wind blowing over the phone, cool. Any questions about where I was were answered with ‘It’s in my diary’, which I’d left as a meeting ‘Site visit – water’. (For those of you who don’t know, I do work for a major Utility provider and Rivington, being owned by that provider, is effectively one of their water sites) – see what I did there.

Anyway, all went really well, climbed great, really enjoying myself. Start the last big climb up to the top of Rivington and the rain starts. Proper rain. Caning it down by the time I reach the top and by the time I reach the descent it’s a maelstrom. I can’t see 20 feet, the rain is blasting into my face, coating my glasses, there’s a vicious headwind, my jacket is collecting all the wind, the road is just one big stream and my brakes don’t work. I make the attempt but this is just a suicide attempt and after hitting 43mph, I back off.

Get soaked riding home, caught all the school out traffic, saw an absolutely beautiful woman picking up her kid in Horwich, our eyes locked as I passed and she smiled at me, which was nice. I powered through the traffic all the way home then and the rain stopped, oooh about 5 seconds after I’d ridden onto my drive.

Not bad then, enjoying this loop, it’s nice and hilly, has some stonking climbs in it and I’m really starting to get into the swing of charging up them. Being fit is ace!!!