According to gps: trip odo 17.1 moving time 1h51m odo 17.15 max speed 24.8 moving avg 9.2
It's extremely busy at work at the moment but I wanted to escape and go out on my bike because... well, it's a good thing to do and stops me staring at my computer/books/room and wishing I was doing something more productive with my lieu days instead. Over this past week I've felt very rough but not bad enough to take time off work - which is handy as we have lots of gigs on at the moment - although I wanted more sleep last week. I virtually lost my voice after Space on Saturday and I've had a very growly and gravelly voice since then, but the headcold I had last week seems to finally be clearing and I don't seem to be having so many headaches either, which is good. Work continues to be busy for the coming week... so, well, anyway, yeah - I decided to go out and do something.
I thought about doing something up at Salford's Blackleach park but then stumbled across the Cheshire Cycling pages again and decided to follow one of their routes - the Biking the Backroads route. Back in 2005 I did another of their routes so I knew they were OK. (As it happens they're not perfect instructions, since they're a bit out of date, but they're not bad.)
The weather was lovely. Beautiful; gloriously sunny (sunglasses/T shirt/shorts) and clearish skies, light breeze, about 14C... and aside from not being able to find the way out of the car park referred to in the instructions (due to no entry signs having sprouted since it was written) and having to retrace my steps a few times around the Anderton Park (for similar reasons, the Park's had new paths and tarmac laid in places) once I got going it was fine. I began to conk out at about mile 8 due to ongoing gentle inclines and feeling hungry, so I stopped for a steak baguette (which was really good) at the Antrobus Arms. The barlady couldn't understand why I wasn't cold sitting outside! The ride back from the pub to the park was mostly downhill, which was great.
The actual ride wasn't too eventful - although one hill just after Great Budworth defeated me - and Great Budworth itself was a lovely village, with a nice church, clock (that's not been put forward yet!), village stocks and of course timber-framed buildings and country pubs! Other points of note included the River Weaver, Trent and Mersey and the Anderton Boat Lift - an impressive structure which I've been to before. It's a shame the visitor centre wasn't open (it's not open daily for another five days - they're still on winter opening times!) but still.
My head's still a little snuffly and voice growly but it was one of those days that makes one just feel good, taking it at my own pace and doing something that I can manage. A respectable average of 10.1mph, too, which isn't bad considering the stop/start nature of my ride at the beginning, which increases to 10.4 if you don't include my post-main-ride investigation of Marbury country park and the canal. Hurrah!
Snapshot of stats after my main bit of the ride and before pootling round the woods/boat lift again:
ttm 51:37 odo 495.6 dst 14.51 tm 1:23:24 avg 10.4 max 27.4
According to gps: trip odo 13.8 moving time 1h27m odo 13.77 max speed 23.2 moving avg 9.4