8!!!!!! am on Sunday morning saw us Belles on the latest stage of training for our ever looming bike ride. We found ourselves admiring Alex's latest aquisition, a NEW bike, and her new high Viz jacket, kindly given by Sian for her birthday, unlike myself, in my Pink jodphurs and smelly, green horse fleece....well I was going on to ride Pink straight after cycle training!!!
We set off up towards Ashendon Church hill to master the art of gear changes going up and down STEEP hills!!
On arrival at the pub car park, our starting point of 'the hill', we cycled round in circles in formation practising getting the right gear for ascending upwards. We scaled the hill up and down for about 8 or so times each time Alex got a little further up the hill without stopping and eventually on the last attempt reached the top of the hill in one go with much cheering-on from myself and Sian!!
We then decided to cycle back to Lower Pollicott, along the way admiring our wonderful scenery that surrounds us and talking...yes, talking to some sheep in a field along the way, they did baaaa back, bless them!!!
Once we reached Lower Pollicott we were reliably informed by Sian that It was once the site of a saxon village, is there an end to the extensive knowledge of 'our Sian'?!!!
The terrain around the Lower Pollicott loop is very similar to that of the Ridgeway, ROUGH, giving us an opportunity to feel how our bikes will react, neeedless to say we all found it surprisingly not too bad.
We cycled back onto the main road leading to 'our Pollicott' and I parted company with my fellow Belles, to go and ride my lovely horse, concluding our Hill and terrain training session.
It has been almost three years since the Belles set a challenge. We haven't stopped, we simply need to re-set and re-focus and find time to get ourselves back in the zone.
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