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Cycling

Muddy Swinley trip

I hadn’t been out on my mountain bike since the beginning of September fr a variety of reasons, one of which was a blown shock which had cut short my last trip. So it was great to get out with Vaughan and Matt on Sunday to Swinley for a bit. The trip up the motorway was slightly alarming due to the sheer amount of rain coming out of the sky.

I’d gone off Swinley after a few very busy trips during the summer. It seems like this wet weather had killed the interest in it, at least on Sunday. We didn’t see many people and more importantly didn’t get stuck behind anyone or hold anyone else up.

It was muddy as hell and slippy too. The phrase “UK slop and grime” from the old ChocolateFoot days came to mind. The usual fear of riding off road came back after not riding for almost six weeks. Seems to take a while to get dialled in and trust the tyres and keep off the brakes. Half way round I seemed to get the hang of it.

Swinley forest

I also thought I’d try my new Garmin GPS which I’d got to plan some road training for LEJO next year. Interesting the kind of stats it gives you and then it plots all of these on a little web app. Neat but complex getting it all to work. Not a massive ride by any stretch of the imagination but you’ve got to start somewhere I guess. Need to start ramping up the miles from now on.