Diary update week 15

Tuesday rode to work - weather was good and I made good progress, same coming home. Another 24 miles notched up.

The weather was not good until Friday when I rode in again. On the way I managed my best time with an average speed of 16.9 miles per hour, on the ride back I was pretty tired and only managed 15.2 miles per hour.

Saturday the weather was fantastic, and I had promised the wife a family day. We had a wonderful day together.

Sunday the kids have their swimming lessons close to one of my normal routes, so we put the bike in the back of the car and once the lessons were over I rode off whilst the wife took the kids home. The weather was not nearly as good as Saturday and pretty soon I was wet through. Fortunately the rain was not prolonged.
It was amazing to see the Bluebells out in force, just like someone had put down a carpet of flowers quite incredible! I was making good progress as I got to Cranleigh so I decided to get in some hills.

First was Leith Hill the first part of this hill is really tough - typically we are coming down this route and I can now see why this is where e hits his top speed. Then I went through Dorking and then up Ranmore, the same route as with Rich. One thing of note was that there is a recycling centre about 300 yards up the road, this results in the traffic being stopped so you need to go up the outside of the stopped traffic - this is the easy bit. The scary bit was that the recycle lorries also go up the outside of the stopped traffic. I would hate to think about what would happen it a cyclist came whizzing down the hill only to see a lorry facing them on the wrong side of the road!!

Once I got to the top I turned right and went down the windy route which ends up at the bottom of Box Hill. So of course I had to go up Box Hill, a good ascent and then I took Simon's route off the hill (only going wrong once). Then it was back up Ranmore up the windy route. For some reason it felt much easier than the last time up this route. It was then across Ranmore down via Effingham back down the A246 home. All in all a very good ride and I felt I made made the most of the my time covering 69 miles with some "big" hills at an average speed of over 15 miles an hour.

The wife has been doing a fantastic job organising the stall for the Send May Fair. She has managed to persuade companies to donate 60+ prizes for the raffle, plus we have a team of cake makers organised and of course the boys will be on their Turbo trainers. I just hope that the weather is good, because if it is I am sure it will be a great success.