The Forest

"Rhymes happen when cycling all day

Road poems, hmmm, what can I say?

No rhyme dictionary 

Has words fictionary

And the pages might just blow away."

Started the week with a cycle in the pouring rain. Strangely enough, I really enjoyed this because it allowed me to test my new mud-guards. Last week I fitted Florence with a pair of SKS race blades and they look great and work just fine. The rain wasn't so bad to be honest, it was stop-start style throughout. Despite the rain it was a warm evening. Ron and I cycled an oval shaped route starting and finishing in Studley. We cycled via Oldhill, Bidford and Knighton on some lovely country lanes offering splendid views. Towards the end we still had power in our legs so we raced up Node Hill and St Judes Avenue. Awesome.


Raced around the TTT 20 route on Tuesday. I was hoping to beat my fastest time and really pushed myself. Despite all my efforts, I finished with an average time - about 5 minutes slower than my personal best.

Took Scotty to the Forest of Dean on Thursday and met up with Aid and Scarlet - his new mountain bike. Scarlet was a nice bit of kit - a Scott Scale 29er. This 29er was much like my bike, only it had bigger wheels, much bigger wheels. The 2 Scott bikes looked good together and really are awesome steeds.

Aid and I cycled both the blue and red routes around the forest. Nice cycling in lovely sunshine. Some parts of the trail were closed for whatever reasons. We also rode the training area in the forest. Before leaving the Forest we tried beans, egg and toast from the cafe - delicious! Aid also got himself some funky new cycling shoes (was I supposed to mention this?!)

After our nosh up we headed to Symonds Yat for more cycling action. The weather had turned sour and we took on some rather hard core routes. This was great fun and included a bit of everything (single track, fire roads, hills, rocks, roots, etc). We managed to navigate to the river and crossed over the groovy swing bridge. Cycled back to the car park climbing a nice 1:5 hill in the process and rewarded ourselves with tea and cake. Still feeling fresh, we headed out in the rain once more and did much of the same. We took a short cut to the river, down a steep rocky wet descent which was flooded in parts and passed through a fast flowing stream towards the end. Finished the day looking like drowned rats. Awesome!


Weekly totals: Cycled 75 miles.