Mark's First "Dress Rehearsal" Ride

I loaded my panniers with 3 five litre water bottles (15kg of ballast) and set off at 8am this morning to ride a day similar to what we will experience in Italy, to see what conclusions I could draw from it.

In summary, I averaged 11.3mph over 5:30 hours covering 63 miles. It was very hilly for about half the ride and I did have a stiff headwind heading up the coast. There was also an easy flat hour following a river. So all in all quite representative of Italy. The main difference is that I didn't stop at all, and did feel my energy fading after 4 hours. Up to that point I had been averaging 12.4mph and I think a lunch stop would have been very beneficial. So I think I could plan on a 12mph average in terms of calculating arrival times, asuming a lunch break to get the energy levels up.

The other thing about today was that I checked today's average gradient against the daily gradients in Italy and there are only three days which are slightly hillier that this ride today, and only two days which are much hillier. I find that very encouraging.

Here's my Dawes fully laden for the first time since the French trip last year - felt good!