Rides Ten, Eleven and Twelve — Two Bikes and a Deadline

There is a point in a challenge like this where you stop choosing the rides and the calendar chooses them for you.

Three rides across two days. Ride ten was 17.04km indoors on Saturday in 39 minutes, with 59m of climbing. Ride eleven was 30.78km on Sunday morning in 1 hour and 32 minutes, 146m of climbing. Ride twelve was 30.57km the same evening in 1 hour and 26 minutes, 143m of climbing. 78.39km in total, and the month nearly out of days.

Getting the Miles Done

The weather has been all over the place, which is how the indoor ride came about.

Forty minutes on the turbo is not a ride I would choose over being outside, but it is 17km that would otherwise not exist. That is the shift this month has made. Early on I was picking my evenings; now I am counting what is left and taking whatever the day offers.

Two 30km rides in a single Sunday is not something I have done before, and I would not have arranged it that way if there had been more of August remaining.

A Busy Morning

The morning route was the busiest I have seen it all month.

Walkers, dogs, and a good number of leisure riders out making the most of a Sunday. It slows you down, and I did not mind it in the slightest. What I liked most was the number of young children out on bikes with their parents — some of them clearly still learning, wobbling along with a mum or dad riding alongside at walking pace.

I have done that ride with a child at that stage. You spend the whole time watching them rather than the path.

It is a good thing to have to slow down for.

Two Bikes, One Day

The two rides were almost identical on paper. 30.78km and 30.57km, 146m and 143m of climbing, the same sort of terrain. What made them completely different was the bike.

The morning was on the CX bike — wider gravel tyres, a smaller chainset, and the one I reach for when I want an hour out without thinking about it. It does that job well and it has done most of the work this month.

The evening was on the Roubaix SL8, which I have just put gravel tyres on. Slightly thinner than the CX ones, and a completely different chainset underneath me.

The difference was immediate. The climbs that had felt like work in the morning simply were not, and the whole ride was more fluid — less fighting it, more just riding. Around a kilometre an hour quicker over the same sort of distance, although the empty evening path deserves some of the credit for that alongside the gearing.

It was the most fun I have had on a bike this month. That bike is going to see a lot more use, and the fact that it looks very good in sapphire blue is not the reason, but it does not hurt.

One More Big Day

The evening ride was overcast, and warm enough that I did not notice the temperature once.

That is a good way to be riding at the end of a month like this. Not fighting the heat, not soaked, just out on a decent evening putting the last of the distance away.

There is one more big day to go, and if it lands the way I want it to, that will be the total done inside the month.

Every kilometre of this, indoors and out, is raising money for Prostate Cancer UK — funding research, raising awareness and supporting men and families dealing with a disease that affects far too many people. This is the last stretch, and it is the one that decides the number at the bottom of the page.

Twelve rides down. And one big day left.