After Feb's rather disappointingly low mileage, I decided that March had better be "back to normal", so I've forced myself out after work whenever possible. I've been doing a bit of travelling, so that accounts for one and sometimes two evenings off, but I've also been trying to up the mileage of evening rides a bit. Often this will be just extending the ride by two or three miles to make it a 25 instead of my "standard" 20 - riding over to Ilkley is good for this, as the main road towards Burley has a number of turning points and gives a fairly painless extra 5 miles or so.
I've been out with the Ilkley chaingang for the last couple of Saturdays - Skipton tried to organise something similar but as usual with SCC a good idea quickly died a death due to lack of interest. Ilkley's chaingang has around 20-30 people, and rides along the valley to Otley as one group, then splits in two. On both occasions I've got myself on the fast group (this involves hitting c35mph on the flat!) and have hung on for a few miles before dropping back.
Even with the "ride of shame" back to the second group you still get a seriously quick (average 20mph+) 30 mile ride, and home before 11am.
Sundays have been given over to longer rides with the club, and last weekend we rode the route of Skipton CC's sportive, Le Petit Depart. 80 miles long, it takes in the TdF route for its first half, then cuts back from Hawes to Ribblehead, Settle and back to Skipton via Airton.
We used a "two stop strategy" as after the battle from Hawes to Ribblehead we were in need of a brew - this inspired us to ride the very steep climb over to Airton and even rode my least favourite road in the Dales between Winterburn and Hetton to finish.
Last week was a far better 200m+ week, although this week will be less due to a beery Paddy's Day night in Derry with the resulting "delicacy" of constitution the day after.
Video of Le Petit Depart here.
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