Solo bike ride and Squirrels

 Hey guys, 

Welcome back to the adventure blog! A weekly Blog where I share with you my adventures through sports, fitness, life and everything in between! This week I want to share my first solo bike ride, well it's sort of my first solo bike ride. 

Okay so background check, its not my first time riding solo on a bike, I use to do it to and from work, and I've been round the park several times on my own, and growing up back home I was always out on the bike, but this was my first solo bike ride that was just a bike ride, not a commute, but a self navigated bike ride, on a road bike, by myself. 

I am not as confident a cyclist as i was growing up, but growing up I always stuck to paths or trails and there were a lot less cars, where I live now is busier for cars and I generally try to stay off the path unless its a cycle path, this has meant working my way through building my confidence on a bike. 

Chris has taken me out on several bike rides, some long ones some coffee rides, and a massive 125km
bike ride to our camp stop for my 30th, and generally this is great, i can follow his line and feel safe in the knowledge that if anything goes wrong hes there to help, so going out solo was quite a daunting process really. 

Initially the plan was just to go for a short 30 minute ride around the park, the reason behind it being that for a 6 week block I am focusing on rebuilding my base training and swapping out one of my runs for a cycle so I can still build up but monitor the amount of impact my legs are taking on as I rebuild. 

However what i ended up doing is plotting a route that Chris and I have done before that takes us down some cycle paths surrounds by tree lines and fields so its a perfect opportunity to go squirrel spotting! (my favourite sport! I spotted three this time!)

The challenges of the route included country lanes with cars, some off road paths where the paths hadn't been maintained at all and the knowledge that i basically didn't have any kit with me to deal with punctures, crashes or any other mechanical. I had me, some water, my phone and my keys! 

The ride took over an hour, mostly because i stopped a couple of times to check where i was going and made at least two wrong turns, but despite the rising panic I really enjoyed the ride, it gave me a nice sense of freedom and once I settled into a rhythm I felt fine, because of how long i was on the bike I started getting some pain in my hands, a hang over from the birthday ride, and i felt pretty tired but all in all it was a good ride out. 

Back home i focused on refuelling, re-hydrating, and cleaning the bike, a much needed job as she was filthy! Elsa is all clean I put here away till the next ride! 

So that's the last adventure, my first solo bike ride! Going forward I will do more, and eventually i will take on longer rides to, but for now I'm going to sign off there, thanks for reading and don't forget to drop a comment and let me know what adventures are you working toward!

Thanks for reading

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Love from Jessie 

xxx