Plans were laid with Allan for a lap of Strangford Lough this morning. 50 miles of scenic roads and a little jaunt on the ferry sure sounded like fun, but as battle plans do not survive contact with the enemy so our plans did not survive contact with the weather. I woke early to the sound of howling, gale force winds and driving rain, and after an hour’s dithering and waiting to see if the storm was going to break, I called it off. Rain I can take, but highs winds just take the fun out of cycling. They can be a little dangerous too.
Besides, with the British Grand Prix, the first mountain stage of the 2010 Tour de France and the World Cup Final on, TV was good today.
So the planned morning Strangford Lap was aborted, but as the afternoon got going the storm died back and I decided to head out for a ride anyway. The conditions were still far from ideal, but with parades and bonfire debris likely tomorrow today was the better day to ride.
At least the winds were at my back as I started out towards Carrickfergus and I made great time down to the castle before turning for Belfast. Along the Shore Road and M5 cycle path was a different story, but I pushed on, stayed on the drops and recored a respectable 18.3mph average to the end of the path. I’m sure that figure was in part due to the initial wind-assisted run down to Carrick, but I’d still worked hard was very pleased with myself at that.
Nothing much remains of Grosvenor High School
I shifted to pootle gear after that and cycled over to east Belfast to grab a few final shots of my old school being demolished (there’s verty little left now!), before looping back to Ormeau Park where I hid from a rain shower for a little while. The embankment then took me back to the city centre and the M5 cycle path again, where I fully disengaged pootle mode to take advantage of a big ol’ tailwind. 22-25mph, which hurt, but in the good way. You know what I mean.
Sunday Ride 2010/07/11
37-ish miles, 16-ish mph average. Not bad-ish for the conditions and amount of easy riding I’d done.
We’ll retry the Strangford Lap next week, I think, but for now I have that TV backlog to deal with.
That school shot looks like a “Most Haunted” trailer. Spooky!