Wettest ride yet

Headed out today a lot later than planned due to some university which needed to be done. Gathering my cohort (Stephen) we left from Bute Park at about quarter to 2 and headed off. Had an inauspicious start when my chain came off about 10 seconds into the cycle, I should have known it would be a sign of things to come. It was easy going at the start, the first 10 km are rather flat as it is actually by the riverside. After that we headed a little further up and managed to take the wrong track and ended up cycling to Caerphilly Castle.

It was quite a nice cycle there although it wasn't really where we'd planned to go. As Stephen had to be back before it got too late we decided to call it a day and head back. It started to rain about 2 minutes after making this decision so I think it was a good one. We headed back to the trail and took a 2nd path we'd cycled past which we thought might be a better/different way back. How wrong we were. If you look at the map at about 24km in, that's where we branched out. It looked fine as we were coming up to it and the first hill wasn't too bad. However after that it felt like one never ending hill. The map has got a neat little button which shows you the altitude and our speed. As you can see on the graph it brings up, my speed dropped as the altitude increased.

We reached what we thought was the summit of the trail, rejoiced, and continued on. Only to find that it wasn't, in fact it got even steeper just round the corner, in fact the highest point on our route was where we decided to head back and make sure we hadn't missed a path that went to the main road. We doubled back and found one which suited my bike just fine, Stephen however was cycling a road bike and had to be rather careful as it was more of a trail for mountain bikes, plenty of mud and rocks and all downhill! The rest of the trip back was rather uneventful other than my chain coming off a few more times. Not sure if I'll end up doing any exercise tomorrow, think I might see how I feel and decide then. I've got a few lectures badly spaced throughout the day so I may try and go for a run in the evening.