My knees seemed to have improved substantially when I got up yesterday, so I thought I'd have a go at the May Fondo. I searched my Strava activities for a 60+ miler of low elevation. Abbots Bromley and back seemed just the ticket, with long stretches of flat, decently-surfaced roads. I go over that way rarely, so it would make a nice change as well. I took the Planet X, again.
Unfortunately, between Clifton Campville and Haunton, the chain slipped off the rings at the front on the inboard side during a clumsy gear change. The X has a chain catcher which is intended to prevent this, but the chain had slipped under it. I had disposable gloves with me so I pulled them on, and set about what should have been the simple task of reintroducing the chain to the inner chainring. Annoyingly the catcher itself prevented me from doing this - it wasn't possible to get the chain up past it. After a minute or two of wrestling with it, I decided to take it off - I don't usually take a set of Allen keys with me but on this occasion I had, so that I could adjust the saddle height if necessary. But shortly after inserting the key into the nut I realised that it was intended to adjust the pitch of the catcher rather than to remove it. So I angled it back to the point where I could pull the chain back up, plonked it back on and set off again.
God knows what I'd have done if I hadn't had the Allen keys on me. I'd have been stuffed.
Missed a wrong turn at Harlaston and didn't realise until I arrived at Wigginton, a village I was sure I'd never been to before. But this turned out to be quite fortuitous, because it was perfect cycling territory. Consulted the GPX viewer app on my phone while resting on a bench opposite a memorial to a man from the village who'd won a VC at the Charge of the Light Brigade, and it turned out that I was just outside Tamworth. I plotted a course back to the planned route. Although I'd added a few miles to my ride, I decided to go all the way to Abbots Bromley anyway as there's a useful village shop there. Stopped at a bench there to eat a large baguette and a cheese and onion slice, and bought a suspiciously cheap Happy Shopper 'energy drink' (39p) which seemed to be the most suitable choice to replenish the bidon.
I came back a slightly quicker way.
The knees started to give a bit of trauma on the way back, after 40 miles or so, but nothing too aggravating. It probably wasn't a good idea to do the Fondo. I may have set my recovery back a few days. But actually they don't feel too bad this morning. I'm happy to have got the Fondo in, anyway. Still got the set (Jan - May).
My impression is that low intensity rides of 20 miles or so are probably beneficial but I won't go much over that for the rest of the month.
I wore a long sleeved top under a jersey with shorts, and was a bit too cold the whole way round. It started to rain about 30 minutes after I got back, so good timing.
Not sure why I don't head westwards more often for a long ride. For some reason I feel a bit out of my comfort zone west of the M42. I suppose it's familiarity, or a psychological / territorial thing.
Anyway - 69.19, 177 this month, 1381 this year. Still ahead of last year (1249 on 13th May). But looking at the rest of the record for May 2017, I don't think that will last long.
https://www.strava.com/activities/1567615032