And yes, I am going to get poetical in this post.
But then I think this particular ride deserves it. Only 25 miles, and it took me a couple of hours, but the terrain didn’t exactly lend itself to speed. I decided to take it carefully and make sure that I wasn’t going over the moderate intensity of being able to breath without gasping, and keep the gearing around 90 RPM cadence. Still, there were some gasping bits, but I was more concerned that I would end up blowing up on the way back not knowing the route. As it happened the only problem I faced was a surprising little headwind coming off the moor, but that was generally made up for by an overall downwards profile on the way home.
So lets get a graphic up and explain the route.
-green line indicates my speed which graced 25mph on some of the downs. These figures tracked using the Blackberry Endomundo app which I was using over winter to track my run.
This route is over Abbey Village and Belmont, which runs at the foot of Rivington Pike on the edge of the West Pennine Moors. The road runs from Preston to Bolton, and there have been many fatalities of motorbikes running the route. The road is usually quite busy because it’s a great cut through to Preston, or the other way of course, which normally would make me shy away from this journey. However, it being the bank holiday after the Easter weekend I guessed that it would be a lot quieter than usual. And I was right. And I wasn’t the only MAMIL and MAWIL (Middle Aged Woman In Lycra) out enjoying the morning sunshine and quiet roads.
I set of at 7.30am. It was chilly, having had a clear night, but the sun shone. I put a bulky but effective Tog24 jumper on over the top of my base layer, and stowed my short sleeved cycling jersey in my camelback, along with my tube of glucose tabs and a small handful of jelly beans from my kids’ supply! – It’s ok, it’s Easter, they are hardly being deprived of sweet stuff…and I happen to like jelly beans.
I’m not going to try to justify the carbohydrate value etc.. They just taste great, end of.
It was hard trawling over Hoghton Tower hill trying to keep my enthusiasm down, and consequently my intensity down. I wanted to reserve as much energy for coming home as I could because of the hills. I know the route well by car, but as we all know, a car is somewhat different from a bike. As soon as you get on a bike that gentle slope with a headwind will suck your reserves faster than a thirsty elephant at an oasis (is that poetical?)
I let the pedals spin down to the motorway, then started heading up the first slope to Abbey Village. I notice there is a new restaurant called Naga opening up, though I couldn’t tell what sort it was going to be.
My legs were beginning to warm up by this point. It’s odd, but you can slowly feel them coming alive. They spin better, and they don’t hurt so much when you put pressure on the pedals. You can then start enjoying the scenery, and enjoy it I did.
There are a couple of reservoirs and the early morning sun sparkled of the rippling water. Over the wind in my ears I could hear the birds tweeting loudly…and then a flock of seagulls nearer Bolton. I ask you, seagulls that far in land? I was reminded of Margaret Hunt in church yesterday talking about the dawn of Easter morning. Was it really quiet when Jesus came alive again, or was there a mighty sound? No idea personally, I wasn’t there. But I think there was certainly some birdsong.
I made it through to the outskirts of Bolton but decided not to go to the end of the road mainly because I had hit the half way time I said I would be to Mrs Gray. I decided to take a stop, change out of the thicker jumper and swap over to the jersey. Scoffed the jelly beans and treked home.
This is the most number of hills and greatest altitude I have climbed yet, but I got home pretty fresh. The route runs pretty close to Rivington, so I am now thinking that the time has come to do the Belmont run and then hit the Pike. It’s steep, and pretty technical, and I’ve noticed the bike could do with a bit of spoke work on the back – something I’ve not done in 20 years. That will be a job for later in the week. And perhaps on Royal Wedding day on Friday I will do another early and tackle the Pike…so Wednesday I will do the simple hour job as a really light maintenance ride.
All in all though, it’s great to know that the winter running has really paid off and I’ve not spent weeks getting back to full fitness.
