Normally its a tune that was last playing on the radio, so I have no idea why today this phrase was going around my head during the last 5 miles of todays ride ?! What I DO know is that it was raining cats and dogs, there was a high wind and the visibility was very poor and as a result I was very pleased to be wearing a particularly flourescent jacket… That still didn’t stop an idiot passing me on one side of the road as I cycled through the coned off roadworks area just up the road. I just wish drivers would treat people as well as they treat horses!
You know you will always get a good workout if you go down to Blagdon lake and back as it involves climbing the second most aggressive hill in the area: Two Trees. Check the elevation profile!
I was pretty tired today, in fact so tired that I fell asleep in my chair. So much for power napping – I didn’t wake up for a good 30 minutes! Although I was half tempted to not cycle tonight I decided that for that very reason I should. After all, I wont get the choice come September… I went on a very round about route to Chew Valley lake, then to Blagdon lake with a wrong turn that ended up in another loop in-between. Feeling OK I decided to hang a right down to Rickford, Churchill and Shipham then through to Cheddar and up the gorge. I got heckled a bit by some weird group of older people (pot holers) but the trip up the gorge at night is always a pleasure. Total length was 47 miles, and it was a slowish ride due to a fair amount of elevation and a lot of small country back roads.
New gloves, lycra (!) and saddle! Turns out the saddle is pretty good, although it will take a while for my behind to get used to the change! The gloves are the same – fingerless is good but they need to give a little, which they will over time. The shorts are great, although I feel like an idiot… And here was the short and fast route for today – I decided to go down to the lake this time – the hill from the lake up to Blagdon then up two trees to the top is a proper benchmark hill and it was good to be able to ride it out of the saddle for most of the way – check the elevation plot!
The bike is all set up and ready for some miles and today the Dahon iPhone bike mount came through the post so it was time to see if everything worked. Plus I needed to get back on the training after two weeks in the US of A eating battered chips and fried chicken…
The Dahon mount looks more exciting that it actually is. They should have used a glass filled material to make it stiffer, as the top case part doesn’t really clamp onto the silicone tray enough to make it seal. Shame. Still, it should do the trick.
The clasp needs to be stronger too – I have stuck a vecro strap around it for the time being to make sure it doesn’t pop open. One handy feature is that you can charge it up and the connector stays within the case. I plan to make an aux battery (combined with a light battery) to give around 5-6x the capacity of a normal iPhone battery. That way I can keep EveryTrail on for the entire day with no power issues.
With a short 30mile route drawn into EveryTrail I loaded it onto my iPhone. The best thing about the £2.50 non-free version is that you can opt to download the map tiles in advance. Awesome. This means you don’t need to rely on the 3G reception at all. Here is the route itself – the photos are pretty poor and the hole in the case needs to be bigger as it creates a small shadow in the top right.
