A long outing

It's been, oh, 3 weeks since I was last out with Pat, so we were somewhat overdue a get-together. On this occasion, the Kevster also joined us. The target for the afternoon was to be a 12km loop (ascent not specified) on the mountain bikes, a route that he had walked with Pat's sister a couple of weeks ago. However, we were to start from their house and ride on the quiet roads to the start of the route near Dun (distance not specified) and return on some tracks and paths for the grand finale.

The road section was as you would expect, but it got more interesting as we hit some tracks and trails where 4x4s and quadbikes had marked their passage by the creation of deeply-rutted and clayey/muddy sections which were often filled with water - tricky, slippy riding. Some nasty uphills were thrown in but Pat excelled herself and blasted up some sections up which Kev and I lamely pushed our bikes. She's 'ard, she is! My excuse is that I don't road bike with a club twice a week!The rest of the riding was thoroughly enjoyable and the weather was perfect. I had forgotten to afix my Garmin to the bike so had no idea how long we had been out for although the descending sun suggested it was nearing 5 o'clock. I also had no idea of the distance we had covered. I just knew I was tired although I was pleased with how good I had felt on the ride.

It turns out we were out for 3 hours, had covered 40kms and done a not insignificant amount of ascent (no idea on the figure tho) - that's my longest mountain bike outing ever, if my memory serves me correctly! It wasn't easy riding either, so I was doubly pleased with my efforts.