I had a simple training session planned for last night, concentrating on a high cadence. Usually I head off on my usual training route. However I felt like a change, who wouldn’t after 4 months covering the same roads every night. I decided to check out the inner London part of the route, along the A4 starting at Hyde Park Corner.

Hyde Park Corner is not a cycle friendly roundabout by any stretch of the imagination, and with 3 sets of traffic lights to get through I wasn’t impressed. But once on the A4 my speed really picked up, bearing in mind was still doing the cadence training and it was about 9pm so there was plenty of traffic, I was clocking between 23mph and 25 mph. Not bad at all. Sure I had to stop and the prolific traffic lights, between them with the smooth road surface I was sailing along. Before I knew it I was at Hammersmith. I had intended to go all the way to Chiswick, but the Hammersmith flyover looked lethal with amount of cars racing over it, so I opted to go round the Hammersmith roundabout and head back to Hyde Park.

In the back of my mind I had thought it must be a very gentle hill, or the wind was behind me, but the return leg was just as fast if not a little quicker.

Now I was pushing a little, but then I will have to be on the attempt, also I hadn’t already travelled 30-40 miles at speed. But even so, this has given me a boost. Perhaps I was being over pessimistic about my London pace.

As for Hyde Park Corner, I found after the first set of lights I can skip left and ride through the arch; rejoin the roundabout unhindered by lights at the other side. Ideally I’d turn under the arch and rejoin the A4 immediately but there doesn’t appear a way of doing that without contravening the Highway Code.

The stretch from Brentwood to Reading, via Slough and Maidenhead is now my worry. I have ridden this part before, and it felt painfully slow. Then again it was last November and the wind and rain made it very unpleasant and not really typical.

It looks like the only reason for not breaking the record is my legs.