It's New Year's Day and we have been looking forward to our first ride of 2015 for quite a while. Whatever the weather we are determined to head out. Fortunately, it's not too bad, but the departure is considerably delayed due to the previous night's festivities. (A trip to London to see the fireworks, which we can now highly recommend!)
Our route takes us past the Harpenden annual duck race, and it was fun to see that the leaders of the race were the real ducks!
We had heard that Emily's tea shop in Whitwell would be open on New Year's Day, and as this is a favourite haunt of cyclists we make this our destination.
This is only a short ride (we actually only did 23km), but I still feel that a snack has been earned! I have a theory that all calories consumed on a cycle ride are automatically burned off during the ride, I suspect this may not have been the case here.
We spend a very pleasant hour in the cafe devouring a couple of cycle magazines. In one of the magazines is a huge listing of all the sportif rides around the country that will be taking place over the year. These are rides of around 50 -150 km long, on a prescribed route, often with marshals and feed stations in picturesque parts of the country. They will be an excellent way to build up to being able to do the London Ride 100 (miles) in August. That is if we manage to get places in the lottery.
However, first I have to concentrate on getting my speed up for the Verulam club rides on Sundays, and I don't think that my 3 short bike rides between Christmas and New Year will have helped much, and there may well be a few extra pounds being carried on the bicycle at the moment. I'm a little nervous for the next ride!
The ride out to Emily's was a gentle uphill with a couple of really fast steep descents, which means the return journey now has 2 nasty climbs. Although I have done them both before they seem particularly challenging today. There are a couple of moments when I start to think I may have to push the bike up the hill, but this is when it is best to switch the brain off and just focus on keeping the legs going round. I get to top without getting off, so am very chuffed.
But, not as chuffed as when I look at my strava report for the ride. I have been awarded 3 Queen of the Mountain (QOM) awards. I'm amazed, stunned, but then the penny drops. It's Jan 1st and my award is QOM 2015. I'm the first female cyclist to cycle those hills this year. Not quite as impressive as I thought!
Note to self, plan a big ride next Jan 1st and log as many QOMs as possible for 2016!
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