A Short one!

Hello blog lovers

NaggyNeighbour seems to have enjoyed her bike ride last week, so much so that she will be getting herself a new bike at some point! We decided to go for just a shorter quicker ride today, just one of the usual routes I normally do.

After church I came home to get myself ready for our ride to Downe Village.  I really didn't know how I was going to be when we start that hill to the village square!  I had a plan of stopping off for a nice swift one at the Greyhound.  So with plans, cash cards, bikes and everything else ready we set off.

NaggyNeighbour has never been to Downe village on the bikes before and wasn't quite sure of the route we would take.  I decided to be leader from behind.  I think me and Naggy were about the same paced cyclists at the moment!  I am hoping that I will get faster because I know that she will!  But for now I am quite happy plodding along behind screaching directions "Left! Right! Straight ahead!" I chose the quieter roads to get to Farnborough village. After riding through Petts Wood and just by McCalls I called out "Left" to her.  This is the route that PWR's take too, and it's all zigzag for a few roads, so every couple of minutes I was say, "Left, Right"  I think Naggy got slightly discombobulated as she was quite sure where she was!

By the time we got to Farnborough Village she had regained her sense of direction again.  The nice down hill section now as we ride down Church road.  It was quite dark with the trees shading the entire road, my sunglasses didn't help either!  But we would soon be through this bit, it's down hill after all, we shall fly down!  Shire Lane is at the bottom of this road and sometimes it can be quite busy, and sometimes drivers use it as a race track! But this afternoon after a particular driver saw that Naggy was just ahead of me, stopped to let me get over to catch her up!  I think the driver must be a cyclist too!

So now we are on this horrible road, it's a climb all the way up to Downe Village!  It starts of just fine, and I was even thinking, "Wow, this seems relatively easy at the mo!" But it was just the beginning!  I knew just a little further up it will get steeper!  I still stayed behind Naggy, I even said to wait at the top if I am lagging behind, but we kept the same pace together, so nice chatting to take our minds of this blimmin rising road!  I started to flag a bit, I thought I was just not going to be able to do it in one go!  I saw a little bit of space on my left and I said "I think I might just stop here!" Well, that didn't go down to well!  Naggy is not called NaggyNeighbour for nothing!  "Just because we are not running, doesn't mean I won't nag you" she called out to me. Flippin Nora!  I was spitting feathers, I just need to grab a drink!  But she wasn't standing for that, "Come on, we can do this, keep on pedalling!"  And so I did!  I managed to get to the village centre and I had to go and fill my water bottle up with fresh water from the pub!  Oh my goodness, it tasted so good, so cold too! Perfect!

Next it was Single Street, it's still a slight climb, but not like the road we had just done.  It was as I was riding down here that I suddenly realised that Cudham North Lane is not the road I wanted, as that is not they way to get to the Greyhound in Keston!  So, you know it's a been a while since I've been on my bike, well apart from last weekend, and I got a little confused with my route.  I was thinking that we need to go through Biggin Hill, which is right of course, to get us to the pub. But in my confusion I had decided that we didn't need to go through the foot path and up the road to the Shampan because we are not longer down Cudham N. Lane!  We just went on through to Jail Lane and then all the way to the main road!

It wasn't until we were going through chicken farm bends that I though "Blimey we got here quick" and my other thought was "Where was Costas, did we miss it"  The realisation dawned on me then.  Oh well, we can always add a bit on after a refreshment stop instead!  We continued to head to the Keston, Naggy still in front with me 'slip streaming' behind! The Greyhound was a welcome sight, and we pulled in and treated our selves to a cool drink and a sandwich!

After our lunch we got back on our bikes and headed towards Hayes.  We were going to go through as many parks as we could between here and home!  The first one was Normans Park, when we cycle through the gates and they, just on the end of the green field was an ice cream van.  It had to be done!  We deserved an ice cream, so two 99's for us and an extortionate price of £2.00 each (and the ice cream wasn't as big as the one pictured either!) but it did feel good as it went down.

Our next park was Whitehall recreation, last Saturday there was a beer festival happening! It's only a small park so we were soon out of there and riding to our next park which was Jubilee Park.  I thought we might just head on back home from here, especially as Naggy turned left to go through Petts Wood.  Then I remembered our park!  "Let's go down to our park to get home" I said to her and so we did.

An excellent ride, perfectly paced for both of us, with a challenge of the bloody hill going to Downe thrown in!  Excellent company too!  We will get bike fitter, and I know we can get faster!  But it's all going to take time!  I've been off my bike for nearly or probably a year!  Back to to the beginning and start again.  Mind you, my first ride out was from my house was all the way to Farnborough and back!  All of 6 miles!  So I think this 19.41 miles is not bad for a second ride of getting back to bike fit!

Geeky stats I will load up when I can get them off my hubbys Garmin!  My Garmin has lost power!  I was so annoyed!  NaggyNeighbour has geeky stats too!