Surrey Hills 2

25th December 2008

80.2 miles

5 hours 41 minutes

Road

Winding through Cobham to Box Hill, and back through Epsom

Just got back. Had random blog thoughts at various stages of the ride, but I must have left them by the side of a country lane somewhere, and they're no longer in my head. The combination of laziness and being used to the fixie, meant that I rarely changed gear. I consider this as a good thing (not sure why I do though), but my thighs are not convinced. Only time I changed down from the big front ring was on the two long climbs up Staple Lane and Box Hill. Yes, I did near my house at 78 miles, and rode up to Wimbledon Town, round the one way system and back again, just to push me over 80 miles. So, first outing for the 705. Hmmmm. Not convinced it's what I'd hoped for. To be honest, as someone who loves poring over maps, needs to have a visual of the surrounding area to make sense of a route, is stubborn to the point of pig headedness, and always thinks I'm right, I'm not sure quite why I thought an auto-routing gadget would be good for me. For the first 13 miles, it was beeping at me for going the wrong way. Whilst I was shouting at it for directing me the wrong way. I knew the way to Cobham, and had picked my route specifically. Clearly Garmin thought I'd messed up. After 13 miles of beeping, I decided to throw caution to the wind, and be submissive for a change. I followed the Garmin. I had a sense that all wasn't well, but as it was taking me on a twisty route through residential streets, I had doubts in my usually trusty sense of direction. I should have trusted myself. After 10 or so miles, I made the assumption that it was trying to send me home. My punishment for ignoring it earlier I presume. Bad Garmin. I had plotted various waypoints on my route, to try and ensure it auto-routed onto the roads I wanted (yeah, so not much of an auto-route as me saying 'I want to go this way'), and I don't know if when I started follwing the directions, it was trying to take me back to the first waypoint that it thought I'd missed, or the later ones by Epsom and Ewell because they were nearer. Who knows. Given the positive reports about the 705, I'm willing to accept this as user error, and I guess I just need to get used to using it. And maybe actually following the directions. So I then reached a roundabout, and made a snap decision to head back the other way. Followed my path for a while, but then couldn't remember the way, as I'd taken so many Garmin-directed turns. Followed my nose for a while, and let out a whoop of delight when I reached a croosroads at which I'd stopped on my previous ride. I was back on my intended route. Woohoo. Looked down at the Garmin to see what it thought of my clearly superior intelligence. It had switched itself off. Meh. Switched it on and back to the ride, now on vaguely familiar ground. Lost my way for a while, and then started to recognise the landscape. Unfortunately, having taken a different route to get to that crossroads, the order of landscapes was mixed up in my memory, and this was the landscape before the crossroads. Shortly afterwards, I was back at the previously welcomed crossroads. I had just done an 8 mile loop to get back there. Stupid Jen. From then on, it was pretty drama free. I managed to remember the route back to Ranmore Common (still love it), and even managed not to miss (well I did but I did a u turn) the turning to Westhumble, avoiding Dorking High Street this time. Although I don't expect it would have been full of busy shoppers today. Back on the climb up Box Hill, and again I found it reasonably comfortable. In fact I really enjoyed it. Especially because it doesn't feel like you're climbing that much, but when you look down over the zig zag road, and later down the drop from the top, you see how high you are. And feel a little bit proud. I reached the summit of Box Hill in about 56 miles. Last time I reached it in about 30. Only a 26 mile detour then, thanks to the Garmin and then me. I had taken no paper maps with me today, relying on the garmin and, if necessary, the brilliant googlemaps on the iphone. So I didn't know which route I was taking, but hang done 56 miles already, I knew I would do my longest ever ride, and was happy to take any route home. So I followed road signs for a while. And made it up a bit. Made a snap decision to go via Ashstead instead of Epsom, despite not being able to work out the Surrey map in my head. Went through Ashtead, onto Leatherhead, then on seeing some unwanted options on the route signs (M25 anyone?) went through Ashstead back to Epsom. Pfft. Decided then to give the Garmin another chance to navigate, and set it for home, which I expect will be the most used feature. All credit to it, it got me home without issue, much quicker than I'd expected. And when I was using it, I found it very good with directions. You don't even have to have the map screen on to use it, so I had all the stats showing, then 0.1 mile from a required turning, it beeped and showed text instructions on what to do. I guess that's just what car sat navs do, but I don't drive! And that was that really. Hands are affected again. Except I haven't blogged this before so most people won't know what I mean. When I do long rides, I lose some use of my fingers. (Making changing gears hard so I have to balance the bars with my arms and use two hands on the gear levers). Last time when I got home, I had to use two palms to turn the doorkey, and the lack of strength/control lasted until a couple of days into my holiday - leaving me unable to write properly or even do up zips etc. Today I was able to just about turn the key, so hopefully it won't be as bad. Is this a common occurence? I hope this issue does improve though, as otherwise I won't be able to do the long rides, and so won't be able to do DI. Didn't mean to add in negatives. So in summary... I rode 20 miles longer than ever before, only the second time I've gone over 45 miles, at pretty much my average speed for 20 mile Richmond Park rides, and felt physically ok at the end. It was 2 minutes and 20 miles longer than my other Surrey Hills ride, over the same climbs. I can't really be anything but pleased. Happy 25th December xx