Tune up #3

All the tune ups are done.

There are definitely no photos for this weekend- The weather was awful. I took my camera, but I didn't dare to take it out.

Saturday was cold and sleeting, with low cloud and a howling wind. It was horrible, but I'm good at toughing this stuff out now.

After the re-route, I think we saved around 3km of road, but in it's place we have some nice, scenic little bits of bridleway around a Tumulus in Brecon. Well, it's nearly all nice and scenic...

...Except for the 2km that the National Park Authority is revamping with drainage and a new go faster flat surface. It will probably be go faster when the un-rideable mud has dried out, and the grass has regrown. It was such a quagmire that I got bogged down and had to carry a bike with mud-locked wheels.

I'm hoping that it is dry and ready for early April. If not, I'll just "ride it" in whatever state it is in and lose some time. It would be selfish of me to cut it out just because it was newly done and a bit slippy for me. It will be a nice little track when it's finished and bedded in so it stays, for the future of WC2C.

Get me!

I also managed to find a route through Brecon and alongside the weir, that I hadn't had time to sort out previously. That's a wee bit more cut off of the road. I'm hoping that there is an ice-cream van there when I get there during the route (at 4 in the morning).

My climb and ride continued so I could extend my training time. Up and into the Beacons on the Taff Trail, I went. This is part of the route, but it had a different character today. The higher I got, the more cold and wet accompanied me on my passage.

By the time I got to The Gap, the Beacons were hidden in a thick veil of clag. I could have sworn they were there previously. Navigating through next to zero visibility using my Satmap I started on my way down to the bottom. About 40mins later I was in Brecon again, and I was absolutely freezing. All of my clothes had migrated from my bag onto my body, but it made no difference.

Even my hill efforts didn't warm me up.

Back home, for tea and medals.

Sunday was more of the same. I rode for miles and got even colder than yesterday. I hadn't learned anything from yesterday and dressed in the wrong clobber. I didn't have enough clothes.

Coach Chris had labelled my ride today as one with "minimal stops". Too right it would be! If I even stopped for a pee I got almost irrecoverably cold. So I kept going.

The next few weeks are just training rides. The WC2C is ready!

Distances and ascent remain as posted a couple of weeks ago.

The rules will be posted in the next week or two.

Bring it on!