Got back from France the day before the new school term. Boy, that was a long holiday.

We arrived back home around three in the afternoon after a 12-hour drive, punctuated with fast food at the Burger King in the Eurotunnel terminal (what happened to Quick?). Within an hour, I was out on the bike for a blast of fresh air and a change of pace. Having expressed concerns, in my previous post, about my lack of leg-strength and stamina, I’ve been interested to see how I performed on my familiar routes.

First observation (it has to be said): British roads (Buckinghamshire British roads) are stupidly uneven and bumpy. Every road is as bad as the worst stretches of road I encountered in France, where exposed tarmac had melted in the hot sun and bits of it had been dragged up by fat car tyres. Most of the roads I was on in France were in good condition, allowing me at least an extra 4 km/h of basic speed.

It always feels windy round here, but I guess that’s only like climbing hills. I was obviously tired that first afternoon after a long drive in the car, so it wasn’t really a fair test. I rode just over 21 km and it took me 55 minutes. I got one Strava Personal Record and one 3rd best time. The PR was on a 3km stretch that goes downhill to a shallow valley and then uphill again. The worst gradient is about 4% for a few tens of metres, which was nothing compared to what I’ve been riding on. I’m now ranked 62/109 on that stretch,  which seems about right. I’m 50. Hopefully, if I was 20 years younger or whatever, I’d be further up the list. On the “3rd best time” stretch, I’m 245/489, a slightly higher ranking because it’s a mostly downhill bit, and I like going downhill, especially on a gentle gradient.

My second trip out since I got back was after work on Thursday, fitting in with my normal pattern of rides, along the same route. This time, I did it in about 52 minutes and got 2 Strava PRs. The first was on the same 3km stretch, and the second was on another little climb, which is called on Strava The Col de Wicken. Again, it’s about 4%, flattening out to 2%, and it’s only about 700 metres, which is laughable compared to the half of the Ballon d’Alsace I managed, with a gradient of 7-10% for ten times further. I’m 139th out of 250 on that bit, which again seems about right.

So I’m doing a little better than before the holiday, but not much. These still feel like hills. Disappointingly, I didn’t lose any weight over the summer, in spite of riding a total distance of around 900km since the beginning of July, including 9km of “elevation gain” and over 40 hours in the saddle. On the other hand, I did only gain a kg (which I’ve since lost), in spite of all the alcohol, snacks, biscuits, cheese, and other French goodies I was stuffing in my face.

So we’ll call it even.

Related articles

• Ballon d’Alsace – The Half Way (frequentlyarsed.wordpress.com)