Back On The Chain-Gang - 20110816

It's been a few weeks since I've been out on my road bike, the elegant Giant OCR-c2.

Not that I haven't been riding. I've done a few miles with my son James, but not in the hills. How would I fare?

The evening started badly. I left home in bright sunshine, but a couple of miles up the road the sky had clouded over from nowhere and rain started hammering the wind-shield.

However, by the time I arrived at Montgomery Park only a heavy downpour was visible a couple of miles to the south and the skies were clearing rapidly from the north-east.

A small, but select, band gathered looking optimistically towards the approaching blue sky. Would we get wet?



Well, as it happens, the roads dried very rapidly as we advanced towards the Sourlands. Frankly, I was dreading the climbs, but Hollow Road was ascended, admittedly, a bit slower than usual, but no disgrace, and, generally, although I found the ascents hard, they weren't too painful after six weeks without the agony and the ecstasy of that 10% grade/incline.

By the end of the ride we'd accomplished just under 25miles/40km with 1300ft/400m of climbing. And the weather stayed good; nice sunset and nice and dry

Thanks, as usual, to Diane, and the rest of the hardy crew. See you next week.