Isobel Stout – Baby hills

The CP Brunch Ride was great. In the pic is Fleur on the left and my fellow newbie, Amy on the right. That makes me the one in the middle! Both Amy and I were nervous beyond any sense of proportion, anyone would think this was the World Champs or something. But for us new folk it is a bit like that, any new challenge is a mix of excitement and anxiety. The good news is we both won our ‘World Champs’ and felt really pleased to have earned our cake and coffee. Big thanks to Brett and Richard and the bunch for looking after us. Thanks too to Richard for letting me fill in all you brunchers on my mission for the Pinc and Steel Cancer Rehabilitation Trust. I collected some donations at the time and will keep this fund open for a bit and then these will be added to the site under the CP team banner. Of course you can go direct to the site and donate that way too.

Now it’s time to try pointing the bike at some baby hills. There are not a lot of these around locally I find. Plenty of stonking great big ones yes, but not much in the way of gentler slopes and/or shorter stretches. I headed out to Cashmere Road this morning and rode over ‘the downs’ a couple of times. It wasn’t my fault I had to climb from a dead stop, the road was being repaired and was single lane! That’s my excuse for having to find granny gear and I’m sticking to it. That and the southerly head wind added plenty of resistance of its own. Coming back with a tail wind was a lot nicer, I am getting craftier in my old age and thinking about these things in advance.

See you out there!