MTB motivation

After reading Trio25's blog http://trio25.blogspot.com/, I'm alway inspired to get out on the bike and get some miles in.  But as usual, after getting home from work, looking out of the window looking at the endless rain that is the Norh West motivation can be difficult.  However, I've got a long(ish) ride coming up with some of the STW massive http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/stw-northern-chapter-ride-the-next-edition-ogden-water-october-4th so time to get fit.  Managed a 20 miler on sunday, along the Leeds/Liverpool canal, jump over to Limbrick, under the motorway, up to Angelzark Reservoir, down the side of Rivington Reservoir, up the the Great Barn, up to the Pigeon Tower, over to Wilderswood, past Rivington School, back along Rivington Reservoir, around the back of Angelzark, over to White Coppice and back home.  I felt quite pleased as it was one of the longer rides I'd done in a while.  One of the only problems was the constant bumping into the general public, an obstruction I can do without - lots of dirty looks and noticible lack of cheery 'hello's' , maybe I just caught them all on a bad day.

Last nights ride was a different matter all together.  A 10 miler, consisting down the canal, round Angelzark, up to Healy Nab and over the other side back home.  The only people I bumped into were 3 MTB's coming down from the Nab and also one guy on foot walking the black section.  I tried not to draw too much attention to myself as I would be wanting to blast accross the farmers field home (the one that has the big sign saying no MTB access).  The only other signs of life were the millions of midges that I either ate, got in my eyes or let nest in my hair.  The weather was a persistant heavy drizzle that if it wasn't for my wife saying, well your new riding regime hasn't lasted long, I probably would haver just stayed in and started drinking bottles of Stella even earlier.

I will be a metric centurian next year!