Seeing Stars

A lovely clear night tonight, with no moon yet, so perfect for seeing the stars.  Once I got out onto the country roads in the pitch black, the view of the sky was phenomenal.

Venus and Jupiter were particularly clear, as they have been for most of the week whilst they pass each other slowly.

I'd recommend it to anyone!

Days Like These

Some days are just made for being outside.  My ride early this morning was fantastic - blue skies, sunshine, a gentle breeze, quiet roads, perfect!  A touch fresh perhaps (6 degrees), but once I got warmed up it was great.

Today's ride (15km) marks the end of my "getting back in the saddle" couple of weeks.  Real training starts now.  I'll be increasing my "long" weekend ride by about 5km per week, with my two "short" mid-week rides increasing proportionately too, building up until I get to about 70km for the long ride two weeks before the event hopefully.

Anyway, on days like this the training seems almost enjoyable!

Wow

Wow! Thank you ever so much - you know who you are even if no-one else does!

Setback

A small setback this evening - I got about a hundred yards up the road, rode over a manhole and my front light bounced free of its attachment.  Landing on the road, it shattered into several pieces and even though I recovered them all it wouldn't go back together properly again so I've got to get a new one before I can go out again.  I'm counting myself lucky I was close to home, rather than several miles out into the country side in the dark!

So, I went to the local pool instead and swam 32 lengths, which I think is half a mile.  A bit of cross-training can't be a bad idea anyway, although I think some of my muscles are going to be aching in the morning as they're not accustomed to being used like that!

Drizzle

I had my first experience of wet weather training this morning.  The last couple of Sunday rides have been lovely bright sunny mornings (though rather cold), but this morning there was a steady, increasing drizzle.

That wouldn't be too bad for many people, but I wear glasses so they kept getting progressively more and more drops on them until I struggled to see so had to wipe them clean each time ready to start over again.

Still, it chucked it down for the rest of the day so I'm glad I got out as early as I did!

Wildlife

One of the benefits of cycling at night or at the crack of dawn is seeing some of the wildlife around.  For example, South Cambs seemed to be teeming with pheasant last week, and I've seen a couple of Muntjac deer recently too.

However, last night I was cycling along a lane through some woods (which meant it was even darker than normal) and some reasonably large furry creature came running out of the trees just next to me.  I'm not sure who was most scared - it or me!  It darted back into the undergrowth before I could get a good look at it, so I still don't know what it was.  It seemed too big to be a fox or domestic cat, too fast for a badger, so it may have been a Muntjac I guess, but I'll never know (I'm pretty sure it wasn't one of the supposed "big cats" that are reported in the local papers every now and then!).  It took me a good mile or so for my heart to stop racing though!

Oh and boy was it a colder night than I expected when I set out.  I hope it's warmer in June!