Suburban ride to mum's – 13.5 miles there and back...

The dark starts are getting darker as we approach October when, in roughly a month from now, the clocks will go back one hour and winter will be upon us.

This week I received two aborts: one from Phil yesterday and a late one from Andy this morning, which, of course, immediately made me wonder whether or not I should go. In fact, sitting here now at 0700hrs there is a strong temptation just to remain seated and not go anywhere, but I've got to, for the sake of my own sanity. Not riding is always a bad idea.

Library picture of tea round at mum's.

So I rode to mum's (13.5 miles there and back) through suburban streets and when I got there I met Jon, we had tea and a couple of Kit Kats, not my favourite snack item, but there you go. I had a second cup of tea and then, around 0900hrs I rode home, through the smallholdings and eventually up the steep side of West Hill like last week, arriving home around 0947.

The bike's in need of a service. The gears keep slipping and I can't crank it down to use the lower eight, which made the steep side of West Hill fairly hard work. I say 'fairly hard' but I surprised myself: it really wasn't that bad. The bike needs new handle grips too, a new front tyre wouldn't go amiss either and some new brake shoes on the front would improve things no end. But being constantly on Skid Row means it'll have to wait. I remember once riding the bike without any brakes, back in 2011. Somehow I worked out a way of stopping it. But it's not that bad yet. The rear brake is so powerful it doesn't matter that I don't have a decent front brake. The last time it was the other way around, the rear brake was non-existent and I relied on a poor front brake. Not good, but I survived.

Tomorrow we're heading for Westerham. Not sure if Phil will be there or not, but Andy's up for it. He wanted to head for the lake, but I'm not sure I'll have the time, unless we head off ultra early.