This morning I found myself for a second day feeling stressed and anxious about things that didn’t really warrant it, so I decided I needed a change of scenery, not just figuratively but literally as well. So I got out my satnav and picked some waypoints in areas away from my usual routes and let satnav’s windy setting do it’s thing.
Once moving I felt instantly better, however I shortly found my neck hurting despite my conscious efforts to try and relax my shoulders. I didn’t want a bad neck to cut things short so I pulled over at a convenient spot and necked a couple or paracetamol and ibuprofen tablets to make doubly sure.
It wasn’t long before I was feeling properly mellow riding through the sunny countryside, and satnav produced a good mix of single-track roads past farms and fields and more sweepy B roads. Adding to the happy feeling was the new rear tyre I fitted last week, so bike was smoothly and confidently steering around bends and obstacles.
After a couple of hours I was starting to feel hungry and in anticipation of this one of my waypoints was Sywell Aerodrome as I remember that had amenities when I went to a forum meetup there a couple of years ago. I got there 15 minutes before they started serving lunch, but the place had a bit too formal a feel about it for my comfort so decided not to stop. Instead I set satnav for a back-road route to Market Harborough and ended up getting sandwiches from the Co-op in the town centre. Eating them in the car park didn’t feel like the relaxed lunch I had hoped for when I set off, so I decided to head to Uppingham for desert and a coffee. Again, I made satnav divert off the usual route (B664) for a change of scene.
Once at Uppingham I could park up in the square and sit down to some refreshments.
It was now about 2pm but I didn’t want the day to end, so was torn between plotting a route home or filling up with fuel and heading further afield. In the end my aching back decided on the former for me. Sticking to my plan of for the day of taking the roads less travelled I plotted a route between villages off the major routes, down some roads I’d never been on, and some that though I’d been on, never in the direction I was this time. One of those had a hill with a great view, (which phone camera doesn’t do justice).
When I’d got to my local petrol station I’d done 145 miles and still had one bar of fuel, so at 66mpg, chilled out riding is also frugal.
Once home a front tyre was waiting for me, I’d ordered this when I’d got my rear but Avon were out of stock and had to make me some. 
Can’t get much fresher rubber than this…
(That’s a manufacture date code for last week.)
. Work tomorrow though…