Day 187 - Morning Ride with Andy

With just 8 days before the AVP 100 miler, I had a number of options this weekend to get in a few extra miles training before the big day. The AVP were planning a gentle 30 miler out from Ottery St Mary to Exmouth, the Sid Valley CC would have their Sunday am fast paced 40+ mile ride and my new good friend and Specialized sparing partner from AVP extended me the offer of joining him on a Saturday morning training circuit. In the end the decision was easy.

Andy and I met on Seaton Down Hill for the steep climb out of town. This is the hill I set my fitness by as I've only recently been able to make it to the top without stopping. Today, I could still feel Thursday's ride in my legs, so I did somewhat fear for how the rest of the morning would go.

First stop Sidmouth, Andy in AVP and me (unseen) in my SVCC colours

I was really pleased that we planned to head out via Sidmouth, as on the 20th September, I'm cycling over there to see the start of stage 6 of the Tour of Britain. I'm not sure, however, that I'll use the same route out, as we then made our way, 7 miles inland, to Ottery St Mary before then taking the old single carriage A30 into Honiton where, after 25 miles in the saddle, we stopped for a much needed coffee and cake!

Having taken on fuel, we had a double climb up Stockland Hill out of Honiton, over which I adopted the snaking mountain pass manoeuvre to level out the assent and maintain some level of forward momentum. I'm not sure whether it was this unconventional climbing motion or the technical hitch I'll comment on later, but something totally confused Strava, because for some reason it awarded me the King of the Mountain (KOM) for the Stockland Hill Climb, which unbelievably no one has climbed before! Oh well a KOM is a KOM and I think this is one which will never be taken from me, as I can't see that it is a route that actually exists!  Once at the top of the 'mountain', the remaining 15 miles were more or less down hill back through Shute and Colyton to Seaton.

JRB wins KOM for the Stockland Hill Climb

The technical hitch I commented earlier on, was on leaving Honiton, when my Garmin decided during our coffee stop that it should include itself, such that it powered down for a rest. This unexpected feature in its design was not, however, spotted until a further 3 or so miles had been covered. Luckily, Strava accounted for the missed miles in its final report, but this being unknown to us at the time and having only registered 39 miles on entering Seaton, we madly decided to do an additional circuit of Axmouth to bring the total above 40 miles! Unbelievably, although in reality I'd already completed some 41 miles, I then went on to achieve my best ever times on both the Seaton to Axmouth and Axmouth Gate to Boshill sprints! What a finish to a great morning's ride.

Stats: 44.4 mi, 2hr 56m, Avg 14.1 mph, Max 44.7 mph, 2,323 kcal