A few Saturdays ago (26th September), I had intended to go on the Marie Curie Limavady Cycle Challenge, a scenic 50Km route around Roe Valley Country Park and surrounds in aid of the charity. However, my plans were scuppered by a late return from England the night before and my event buddy Norwin being out of action with a bad cold. We’d enjoyed the Craigavon Cycle Trail event (also organised by Marie Curie) and Norwin had collected quite an impressive amount of sponsorship money, so it seemed only right to do the distance even if we couldn’t do the event itself. In that mindset, we set out to do a 50Km penance ride.
The weather wasn’t fully co-operating, throwing high winds my way as I headed down the Antrim Road to meet Norwin in East Belfast. It was the sort of wind where you alternate between doing 15mph and 30mph as it changes direction, but at least it was dry and not too cold (for October). In these conditions I concentrate on keeping my power output steady and ignore the actual speed. You can’t fight the wind, it’s bigger than you and you’ll and only end up exhausted early if you try!
Due to the wind, we had decided on following the reasonably sheltered NCN9 cycle path along the banks of the River Lagan in Belfast and out towards Lisburn. We needed to cover 50Km so a simple 25Km out-and-back loop was the order of the day. Unlike the earlier Craigavon ride, were were both on road bikes; I was on my BeOne Storm and Norwin was riding his shiny new Trek machine.
I’m familiar with the city end of the NCN9 path from my days in the QUB Mountain Bike Club, but I’d never ventured further than the turn-off for Belvoir Forest Park so following the river out to Lisburn and beyond was new territory for me. The path itself isn’t ideal for road bikes as it’s quite narrow and bumpy in places, and the previous night’s high winds had brought down a lot of debris that we had to contend with too. I had a few hairy moments as I struggled with grip and gusting crosswinds, but luckily I managed to keep the BeOne upright, on the tarmac and out of the river. Riding this path in these conditions took concentration and our speeds were quite low – in the 15mph ballpark – for most of the distance.
I have to admit that we didn’t ride the whole way: one section outside Belfast was blocked by fallen trees and was only (just) passable on foot by clambering over the trunks with our bikes on our shoulders!
We soon arrived at the Island Centre in Lisburn and continued on past until we reached our 25Km turnaround point along the Blaris Road, at the old cemetery. It wasn’t quite 25Km however, so we did a few laps of the car park to make up the difference! We took a short break, but we were in an exposed position beaten by wind and rain, so it wasn’t long before we were (gladly) turning back the way we came.
The journey back was much like the outbound leg though it did feature the hariest moment of the trip when an unexpected crosswind ripping through a hole in the protective hedge almost shoved me sideways into the river. I was a little damp from rain at that point (it wouldn’t be a Marie Curie ride without rain) but could easily have been a lot wetter!
Stopping only to fix a puncture just outside the Cutter’s Wharf bar (so tempting to pop in for a swift half), we returned to our base in East Belfast with just over 32 miles on Norwin’s trip comoputer. I’d cycled down from North Belfast and so had a few miles more notched up, 42 in total with average speed a lowly 13.6 mph due to the conditions and terrain.
Despite the relatively short distance, with the conditions (have I mentioned it was windy?) and nature of the path, this was a challenging enough ride to complete. It took real concentration to control the light road bikes in the crosswind on the debris strewn path, and a few times I found myself distracted then suddenly heading in the wrong direction struggling for grip.
I think we’d made sufficient effort to complete the penance for missing the event itself!
Very honest. I probably would have done a 50K penance drive in the car.