First bit of tough riding....

So the weekend trauma has now passed, it was the GS Henley reliability ride. I had know about this ride for a couple of weeks having been receiving the email reminders and a few friends asking if I am riding it. As I am not one to ride outside in the UK too often at this rather miserable time of year I had kept saying “no, no chance”... or, “no way, I am going to be on the rollers for a couple of hours, much more fun”. Well, as the week has developed I have been having daily treatments from Laurence on my quads and feel some really big steps forward, so I was quietly thinking if the weather was decent I could think about doing this ride.

Saturday morning came and the forecast for Sunday seemed to be ok so I was having to consider going out, and actually looking forward to it in a strange way (something I do not often do on UK rides).

I am not sure if reliability rides are the same everywhere round the country, but the ones in our area just seem to be a group ride at FULL speed form the off till the finish (only slowing at junctions and dangerous sections of road)! For those who are not cyclists, the short explanation is: You have a designated start point and meet there in the morning, decide if you fancy the slow, medium or fast group then join that group. So the reliability part is, your group are given an average speed to hit for the course. The winner is the most “reliable” rider who is nearest to their average speed.

It was very windy Sunday morning as I am sure it was in most parts of the country, so riding was going to be tough as it seems to be constantly head wind on days like that. Add to that my lack of anything beyond “base” or easy riding and it was going to be a tough day out. As per usual the second we pushed out of the town square in Henley the pace was full on, the group strung out in single file and instantly I was hanging on to the back of the group. The further down the group you are the bigger the surges you get so you have to go from steady to full effort to stay in touch, similar to interval training. The more near the front you are the smoother it is.

Well I suffered for 70 minutes until I finally decided enough was enough and I dropped off for good and trundled round the rest of the course with some other guys. Still with only a small amount of quality mileage in my legs I was pretty happy with how I was riding and the numbers I was producing were not that bad. Hopefully plenty of progress to be made in the months to come if I can keep moving forward with the knee intact.

Just a short write up today, back in France now for some more climbing and hopefully sun too!

Thanks as always for reading, much appreciated.