I lost my bottle...

Brilliant tip from Chris the Chiro last week as he pulled my pelvis back into shape (again) - rather than bending to reach the handlebars, 'hinge from the hips'.  What a revelation!  Much easier to pedal, so I whizzed off a quick 25 miles on the turbo trainer with my newly hinging hips on Tuesday.

I'm still not entirely sure what happened to Wednesday, so my next planned ride was out on the roads, cycling to Cardiff Bay and back (30 miles +) for a lunch meeting with my accountant on Friday.  These kinds of meetings tend to focus on the 'lunch' part...  He texted early on the day to say 'Good news!  I'm not in the Bay so how about the Maenllwyd?'  Excellent.  This is exactly one mile from home. I managed to persuade him to meet up in a different pub about 6 miles away and then left it too late to get there comfortably because I spent three hours helping two gorillas fix a new gate to the driveway which was made trickier by the fact that the gate supplied was 6" shorter than the old gate which fitted.  Sigh.  A second gate has now been ordered.  Just a shame that we'd given the 'new' gate four coats of paint...

Anyway, when I eventually set off I took a 'short cut' through a local estate.  My short cuts are legendary with the Melodeon Master, usually because they're (a) not shorter and (b) difficult to get through.  True to form, my short cut was rubbish.  Not shorter, quite muddy and about one mile downhill on a seriously pitted track which made my teeth rattle...  As I was late I was really shifting down the pitted track and at some point I lost my bottle.  Literally.  It bounced out of its bottle holder and span across the track.  I screeched to a halt, propped the bike in the hedge and trotted back to get it.  The pub wasn't where I thought it was (a mile up a steep hill further) so rather than arrive looking fit and competent in Lycra, I wheezed into the car park red in the face and barely able to speak.  My accountant said it made his day - I don't think he's stopped laughing yet.

After a rather good lunch (food = energy, yes?) I set off on a roundabout route to home, aiming to get to well over 25 miles...  I did 18.  It seems that fish and chips, apple crumble, hot chocolate and two glasses of wine is slightly more energy than a cyclist can cope with...

However, in my defence, it was a VERY hilly 18 miles.

See - hilly.  So that counts double, surely?