rain miles count double

A picture’s worth a thousand words, they say, or in this case a thousand miles. Sunday’s ride nudged me over the 1,000 mile mark for 2010 and I didn’t even notice until now.

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. 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.

As I left my office in Belfast City Centre yesterday evening the weather wasn’t looking great. It was very overcast, with a blustery wind that brought spots and promises of rain, so a perfect evening for an attempt on the 900ft Col du Cave Hill. It didn’t go so well.

The June 100 Challenge was a simple one: can you cycle 100 leisure miles in the month of June? For 24 of the 31 participants, including myself, the answer was “yes we can” !

Thanks to some unseasonably (it’s summer here in Northern Ireland) dry weather and competitive urging from the June 100 Challenge, I’ve racked up quite a few miles in the last week and a bit. One hundred and eighty, as you may have already guessed. It’s the most intensive period of cycling that I’ve undertaken for quite some time. Possibly ever.

The Belfast round of the two-race Halfords Tour Series Ireland hit town on Friday night, and I was there to watch the action.

The Halford’s Tour Series comes to Belfast city centre this Friday 18th June 2010. Details of the race route and traffic restrictions are now available in a release from Belfast City Centre Management.

No charity invitations today, so I was free to have a sneaky lie in and follow my own route.

A quote I’d seen on Twitter during the week had inspired me, so I set myself a bit of a challenge with a route that was longer and hillier than anything I’d attempted this year so far. And with no sensible reason other than “Let’s go to Lisburn”, I plotted a path through Belfast and set out.

I have a fleet of bikes now, and every good fleet needs a headquarters. So I built one.

June 100 is nothing if not motivational. I had a bit of time to kill this afternoon, and after checking the June 100 standings I saw that a quick 15 mile ride would move me well up the table. It was a sunny day, I had time on my hands; what to do?