Hill Work By Stealth!

The weather forecast presented me with a great opportunity today.
Riding the Scotty Dog route in reverse would give me a greater proportion of uphill miles (less gradient but longer) and all of the 'easy' flat and downhill sections would be into a 16km/h wind.
I also had time to add in a little extra loop to make the miles up.

It was another very nice morning.  One thing I hadn't factored in was the fact that I would be passing more schools at "Little Johnny can't walk 400m to school" time so it was very busy until I got out of town.  But after that it was great - really quiet.
And I achieved what I set out to do - simulated climbing for the majority of the ride


One thing that I DID notice was that my left hand got a little nerve-numbness at times.  My gloves are pretty old now and a bit threadbare, and I've been thinking for a while that my bar tape could do with being replaced.  So a couple of little jobs.


The ride today was a little over 47 miles and took just under 3 hours.
I'm thinking that as a training pace on *this* terrain, 50 miles in <3 hours would be a reasonable goal over the coming weeks.  I know that it is fairly meaningless in terms of what I'll be able to do over the Fred Whitton course - but it is a reasonable one for me to measure myself against, I think!


I think that tomorrow I'll have a change and head over to some steeper hills and bat up and down them a few times.