Juneathon day 7: bike!

A couple of weeks ago, I attempted an introductory ride with the Amersham Road Cycling Club. Unfortunately, my plans were thwarted very early, when about 10 minutes in to the ride my chain snapped spectacularly, knocking out my rear gears. Today I managed my first proper ride, though, and it was really good fun!

We cycled over from Great Missenden to a pitstop near Benson in Oxfordshire. According to Strava the ride was around 57 miles. I hadn't done proper group riding before, so had a bit of a learning curve to climb in terms of how you deal with other traffic, communicating around the group and so on. Also, this was one of the longest rides I've done, so I wasn't sure how I was going to cope!

In the event, it went well; the hardest part, for me, was the backache for the last hour or so, as I'm just not used to it yet. I was happy with the pace, though, in context. The ride was also interesting from a diet point of view: I'm following the LCHF approach at the moment (moderate protein, very low carbs, high fat), which people find counterintuitive for exercise. However, I made it through fine without gels, cake or sugary drinks; in fact, after my breakfast (scrambled eggs, bacon, avocado and spinach), I only had a coffee and some nuts half-way round, then got back and didn't actually eat until around 4-ish, but felt fine. Yet, over the ride, I had plenty of energy and could have probably hit it harder if I had needed to. So it's obviously working in some way!

Pitstop on the Thames

One think I will point out is the shockingly bad driving we saw around us at certain points. While many drivers were considerate and patient, there were a number of others who felt obliged to shout, honk and overtake very close, risking life and limb for our group. Some car drivers seem to think that bikes have no equal right to use the roads, perhaps forgetting that we are also fully paid-up car drivers too...

Anyway, overall I was very happy with how that ride went, and I've also caught the sun a bit, which is always good for vitamin D too! But now it is late, so - until tomorrow.