April has begun.

Since I was feeling a lot better I headed out this morning. I'd said I'd be back in time so ALi could come home from work. Got out about 9:30am and headed over to Rivi, usual way. Then down the horse farm descent, up the commonwealth downhill, up the pike. Then back down and down the ICR where I stopped part way down, I know it's in my head as I cleared in the dark last week. Anyway back up Chinese Gardens and along the Belmont Old road where I decided to explore a cheeky footpath that seemed to run parallel to the road. It was quite enjoyable but boggy in places, I only had two stiles to climb over and was wished a good ride by a hill walker. It will mean my average speed for the loop will drop without the Belmont road to fly down. Then it was over to the A666 and time for some more exploring, took a path I've been on before but instead of climbing over the stile and through the golf course I beared right around the side, it was a lovely bit of singletrack and eventually came out via last drop village, a guess got me back to Bromley Cross and then I followed the railway line home.

Did a few new things this ride since I was taking it easy. First thing was I tried a new energy bar.
Didn't really give it much of a chance from the two nibbles I took at the bottom of the commonwealth down so I'll have to try the rest of it later. I'm not too bothered though as I'm happy with Torq bars, it's more gels I want to get used to as I think they might be useful over transwales.

The other thing was I stopped my Garmin auto-pausing so I got an average speed including stops, I need to know I can cover the distances required in transwales near to the time limit with stops, it doesn't matter how fast I'm cycling when I don't include them. It is a little odd and I'd like to be able to see both averages when I'm out on my bike.

Anyway today's stats:
22.63miles
Average moving speed 8.3mph
Average Speed(including stops) 7.2mph
Average Heart Rate 147bpm