Gerlingen - Weil der Stadt - Darmstadt - Gerlingen

Hmmm, given that the aim of the weekend was to do two rides on consecutive days, after yesterday I allowed myself to think that anything over 50 miles for today would be acceptable.

Which I managed, though only by 0.19 miles, and even then it involved a few unnecessary S-shapes in the last miles to extend the distance. I suppose I could have gone round the block several times to increase the distance, but that was never really on the cards, once honour - in my case an easily-appeased organ - had been strictly saisfied.

In my defence, it wasn't entirely my fault. Admittedly, I was tired, with some specific aches (more below) but what threw me was that I started the day parping in church, and a service that I thought was supposed to start at 9am and go on for an hour turned out to start at 9:45 and go on for two and a quarter.

I'm not really familiar with the German Lutheran church calendar, otherwise I'd have known that this Sunday was when the youngsters get confirmed. 17 of them in this case, and with each of them having to be done individually, prayers from most of the parents, two baptisms, three or four hymns and the four pieces we played, it didn't take a very long sermon or prayers to rack the minutes up.

So it was gone 1:30pm when I eventually set off. Since I was looking for something around the 50 mile mark, I thought I'd do the old faithful Weil der Stadt - Darmstadt - Magstadt - Renningen route. This is normally only about 40 miles, but since the Glems cycle path is closed near Gerlingen, a detour via Ditzingen-Hofingen is necessary, which adds a few miles.

Another 'benefit' of travelling via the Hofinger Wald is that there's a long drag up - nearly three miles - and I wanted to see if I'd recovered enough to do it without needing to stop too often. It's not at all steep (except in one short place), but it does go on.

I also had a few twinges. The stomach was no surprise - it's like doing situps for a few hours after no practice and expecting to be OK the next day. The top of the legs was less pleasant, but that seemed to wear off after a while. The real problem was on the inside and top of my right wrist, which started to feel horribly like tenosinovitis. Hope not, because that's a real nuisance. Maybe I'll give the arms a couple of days off. If it goes away after that. it wasn't RSI.

However, it was useful in a way, because I was able/forced to find a method of getting along which didn't use the arms too much. I wouldn't like to try it for a very lengthy period, but it's possible in an emergency, unless you get a very steep climb where you need to throw in the kitchen sink.

Anyway, the ride itself. Fairly unmemorable, at least for me, as I've done roughly the same route at least a dozen times.

The only stop was just after Weil der Stadt, where I was disappointed to find that since they were opening for the first time that weekend, they had no Zwiebelkuchen (why? How long does it take to mature?). Also, the I realised that the strategy of using the legs to take the burden off the arms doesn't work when the task is lifting a beer mug, and so that was a two-handed job.

Another climb (though still not that strenuous) at Darmstadt, then through Magstadt and Renningen again.

Finally, across the fields, and the long climb at the start was gloriously reversed as I whistled down the slope for nearly three miles with no effort. Then got home and collapsed.

Pictures

Updated 21 May 2010