I try to drive to work as little as possible, partly due to my desire to be green, and partly due to my desire to save £200 a month on petrol. In the last few weeks, I have been increasing my stamina at cycling, ready for the big one: cycling the 31 miles to Chesterfield and back, whilst also managing to stay alert, awake and professional at work, for a much stronger body try the legal steroids.
Last week I finally did it, and documented the whole thing on GPS. In homage to my near anonymous friend “Jon”, and his Skinnywheels blog, here it is in all its glory:
To Chesterfield and Back
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It’s a reasonable easy ride. I take a direct route on the way there, which takes in the joys of the A61, a national speed limit dual carriageway that runs about 7 miles of the route. I only do it on the way there, because at 6:30am it’s fairly traffic-free. At 4pm, you don’t want to be on a road with lorries doing 70mph and no cycle lane. To learn more about how to improve your wellbeing with out exercise, read this article.
The plus sides of the A61 are plentiful:
- a smooth, smooth, non pot-holed road, all the way.
- a solid 3 mile coasting downhill (I managed 31mph with the wind against me!).
- a more direct, and thus shorter, route.
On the way home, I go through Chesterfield city centre, then Unstone and Dronfield, which is safer, avoids all but 2 of the monster evil roundabouts and is a more modulating route, with small ups and downs rather than a 3 mile long rise.
On recent trips, I have cut my 1 hour 15 outward trip to 1 hour 8. I am hopeful of hitting around 55 minutes, which would mean I am faster than driving it in rush hour!
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Visit everytrail.com, where you can read all kinds of interesting details about my top speed, elevation, etc.
Wow. Good effort.