New roads

The rides over the weekend were nice for the amount of new road in them. On Saturday I also had to change my plans because of some low-lying mist that I didn't fancy cycling through with no lights. Making my route up on the spot and following my nose for once was a welcome change. If you look at the route you will see that at one point I ended up on a road I didn't mean to be on and I did a quick double back. I also had company for a couple of miles near New Gilston which was great as I wasn't feeling that good then but by the time we parted I was moving along much better.

I'd had trouble getting going on Saturday altogether and went out really because I needed to for training purposes. I guess the moral of story is; don't have a big curry the night before if you want to be quick the next day! But the meal was good.... If you're interested we had the aforementioned curry at the Chatni in Methven.

The rest of Saturday was lovely. I dropped down towards the south coast of Fife and then came back over an easy hill to rejoin well known roads just south of Dunino. By this time the sun was out and I was having a great time. Sadly time constraints meant getting off the bike and waiting for the next day.

Sunday's ride contained a self inflicted challenge. Strava indicates that there are two 3rd category climbs in Fife and having examined them I decided to tackle the easier looking of them. I wanted to see what was harder about it compared to the little climbs I had done already. My first challenge was to cycle to it. 25 miles saw me passed Strathmiglo, well warmed up, and onto the climb to Abernethy. I needn't have worried about the climb. At the bottom I put the bike into the granny gear and then spun the cranks all the way to the top. No discernible problems to speak of and the way down on the other side was great fun. More new road took me to Newburgh and then from Lindores to Collesie. Then a lovely back road from from there towards Cupar. Back onto known roads for the last bit home via Piscottie. I had enough in the legs to sprint for home over the last few (downhill) miles. I paid for that in the afternoon when my legs felt leaden. Great fun at the time though.

I'm rapidly running out of new road opportunities round here and I don't particularly want to put the bike on the car to go somewhere to start riding. That seems to be defeating the point somewhat. The only solution I can see it to ride for longer. Excellent!

The rides

Saturday

Sunday

Road User Awards

Having had a run of very good driving recently, this weekend saw quite a lot of bad driving. One in particular who decided to jam their van in between me and another cyclist on a mini-roundabout. The manoeuvre helped no-one. And when they turned into a car park just a few hundred yards on it felt even more ridiculous. Oh well, such is life. The best traffic related moment of the weekend came on the hill up from Strathmiglo when a pick up truck went by with two dogs in the back, both barking like mad at the cyclist. I was just glad neither of them decided to jump out. But it did give me a big smile.