There seems to be an opinion that for a ride to be hard, or difficult, there has to be a sufficient amount of hill climbing involved. With this in mind a mixture of the Tempo and Intermediate rides set out on route to Clive’s Fruit Farm at Cropthorne. The ride leader had a plan to have a relatively flat route for today, for that read “easier”, because the weather was going to be pretty hot, what he didn’t factor in was that just meant “faster”.
A breakaway of five became four after a saddle issue delayed one of the break, anyway the four arrived at coffee without further incident and somewhat ahead of the traditionally aimed for 11am time slot. We were joined by the rest of the Intermediate group and Coffees, cokes, brownies and other sweet treats were snaffled in short order!
In no time at all it was time to catch the tailwind home, first a short physics lesson, a black body absorbs all radiant energy falling on it, in practical terms this means the ride leader’s saddle felt very hot where it had been left in the sun during our coffee stop!
Now to that faster reference from earlier, well with a little wind assistance things got faster still, a cracking pace was set on the way back until Prescott where the ride leader’s legs said ‘enough’ and the lead four disappeared off into the distance, whew!
Having slowed a little I got back with 60 miles on the clock, at 17.8 ml/hr average, 2096ft feet of elevation gain.
MB