This is the third day in a row I’ve been out on Claudette as tonight was my last session with my RideWise trainer, Wayne. The plan had always been to have a quite long ride tonight, but it was weirdly longer than planned, and after a couple of hours we covered 9.42 miles. Hardly a long distance but in the last 3 days I’ve more than covered the distance for Sunday and am getting more confident every day.

Tonight was massively important for me as the ride accomplished something I really wanted to do, ie cycle from home to enjoy a ride around the nature reserve at Attenborough. Top highlight was hearing a cuckoo, genuinely can’t remember the last time I heard one. I know now that I’m capable of much more so hopefully this summer will be one of discovery, fresh air and loss of adventure for me and Claudette!

I’m scaling it back for the rest of the week now and will just do smaller rides, in preparation for the big day on Sunday.

My added bonus tonight is that I am now formally qualified to National Cycling Standard level 2. I guess that’s a bit like the old cycling proficiency? Shame I’m just aggravating the bruises (here for posterity)…

Ouch!