11th July 2010 ride

Travelling anti-clockwise as you look at the map. 33.51 miles. Average speed of 12.32mph. I was meant to find a fairly flat route to gauge how far I can do in preparation for our France, Belgium & Holland trip in just over a month but instead found every large bloody hill in the area. I started at home near Barden Lake/Powdermill lane, went up to Hildenborough via Stocks Green Road and Nizels Lane. Went through Sevenoaks Weald and then down and round Bough Beech reservoir going through Bough beech and then up to Four Elms. I then dropped down to Edenbridge – jeez – the place is huge hill after huge hill. It should’ve been called Edenbloodylargehills. I stayed on the main road (B2026) until I go the A264. At that point I stopped for lunch (cheese, ham & chutney roll, flapjack and a bag of French Fries crisps (piss boring plain flavour) which was at 22.5 miles. It felt like 225 with those hills. After resting, I rode a bit along the A264, but not being a fan of riding on fast main roads, I turned off nearr Blackham and headed towards Fordcombe. More hills of course. I continued on but took the wrong turn somewhere and instead of going through Speldhurst I ended up nearly in Penshurst. A check of the map seemed to give me two choices (at the B2176 junction) – left to go to Penshurst or right to go to the end of Langton where the A264 joins. Thinking the Penshurst direction would shorten the ride somewhat, I chose right. This was a tired and disorientated decision, as it didn’t bring me out where I thought it would, it took me towards Bidborough, so when I got to the Leigh sign, I turned down instead of going along Bidborough Ridge as didn’t see any value in going down Quarry Hill. So this took me past the college and back down round the High Street and back up to home. Although I wasn’t intending to do hill training and I’m cream crackered from it, it was a good ride that pushed my current fitness level to about the max. Just need to find some flatter routes to get a lot more miles in per ride. Managed to get a few ‘hellos’ from road cyclists – younger ones are miserable sods though but the 30-40 plus seem to say hello.