I met Graham today at the House Of Sport on the Malone Road. The weather was better than it has been, but still a bit of a chill in the air and a fair bit of the air was moving around too.
The day was nearly cut short before it even started though, as I narrowly avoided being run over by a red light jumping Audi in Belfast city centre.I had to grab the brakes, jump off the bike and fling it sideways to avoid a collision! Unfortunately the jumping off part didn’t go so well and I landed heavily on the top tube,using non load bearing parts of the male anatomy as shock absorbers. It’s left me with a nasty bruise in a not-safe-for-work kind of area.
Excitment over and most of the pain having subsided, I rode on to meet Graham and we headed off towards Lambeg then Lisburn, through the city and out the other side along the Saintfield Road. From there we took the road to Carryduff; it was supposed to be Saintfield but super navigator Graham turned off a bit early and we found ourselves heading towards Carryduff instead. Ah well. From there it was a pleasant drag down the main A24 Saintfield Road to Forestside, then to Graham’s house for some much needed tea and biscuits.
Graham does good biscuits by the way. He did take the last remaining fruity cookie for himself though, and there was no milk for the tea either. Hmm.
20 miles on that loop, more or less. I did an extra 21 miles getting there and back for a day total of 41 miles, and I felt every one of them. I must have been knackered from too much DIY and Graham, despite this being his first time out this year, was leaving me for dead on the hills. Either that or I’m just old and unfit and need to do more hill training.
I know which story I’m sticking with.
