Real World Bike Ride and a Body on the Beach

A Busy Weekend as Usual

It was a fairly standard weekend here with a surf ski paddle on Saturday morning, followed by a good Turbo Trainer session and then lots of time spent cleaning the van, cleaning windows and even having a quick inspection of the bees.

It was good to get out on the surf ski here for the first proper session recently. The turbo trainer session was good as it was the first ‘ride’ after an FTP test and an increase in my FTP. This meant that it was at a higher intensity than that of recent rides and I didn’t know how I’d cope. I made it through even if it was hard.

It was good to get the van sparkly and clean after the winter too and I was surprised to find that there were bees in both of the hives. They have now been fed and I’ll try to give them a little more attention over the next few weeks.

Sunday was good too with a nice easy run and a good 3.5km swim in Machynlleth followed by a bacon sandwich and coffee.

I had hoped to get out for a paddle again but the waves were a little to rough so I did a bit of gardening, chilled at home for the afternoon and then had a nice Spicery meal in the evening.

Life on the Beach

After all of that I was planning on a fairly easy day on Monday, but there was some surf and little wind to start with so I headed over to the beach for a surf ski paddle. I had a chat with the guy who seems to have taken up residence in the red brick pill box on the beach. He seemed OK really, although I’m not sure why he’s there. He told me that he has now pushed his car out of the flooded car park but that it still won’t start!

That doesn’t really explain why he’s living in the pill box. I’m sure if my car got stuck in flood waters I’d find an alternative way to get home. I wouldn’t simply take up residence in the nearest structure I could find, but who am I to judge!

It was a nice little surf session though with the sun shining. The wind did pick up a little which meant the waves were a little bumpy but I had some good rides and a good workout. It was good to see the sun as well.

Real Life Bike Ride

Back at home Colin had messaged me to say he and Matt were heading out for a bike ride at lunchtime. We’ve been trying to coordinate a ride for a while but I’ve never really been able to make it as I’ve always been working. Today I was ‘working’ from home so had some time to spare. The sun was shining, things looked good and with a 12:30 start from Gogerddan I had the time and no excuses.

I quickly changed the batteries in my power meter pedals, charged up my Di2 battery and got my kit on. I left here at midday, met Colin and Matt in Gogerddan at 12:30 and then we headed off for a nice, fairly hard effort around the Borth Loop. I did put in a bit more than a ‘fairly hard effort’ up the hill out of Taliesin. Don’t tell Colin but I was ‘flat out’ all in an attempt to drop him for a little bit. He knew it was coming to be fair, I couldn’t have a ride with him without a little bit of friendly competition and I pleased to say that it was successful. We regrouped at the top and then rode into Bow Street where I left them to head off to Gogerddan and I headed home.

Body on the Beach

whilst riding along the Golf Course straight at the start of my ride it had been clear that something was going on. I’d heard a helicopter hovering overhead as I’d been getting ready and as I rode along the road there were several coastguard vehicles parked up on the road and on the golf course all with lights flashing. There were quite a few police cars about too all with flashing lights, lots of hi-viz clad people on the sea wall and a huge great big Coastguard helicopter on the golf course. As we rode into Borth a little later the vehicles were all heading in the opposite direction and the helicopter had gone.

Once back at home I did a little bit of online research and discovered what had happened. As far as I can tell there was a body washed up on the beach. This is all rumours and probably some speculation at the moment as I haven’t seen anything official but people seem to be saying that it could have been the body of a missing person from Ireland that had washed across to Wales. What’s worse is that I had seen a couple of blackish items bobbing about in the sea earlier while I was out on my surf ski. I thought at the time that it was a couple of lobster pots, but having heard this news who knows, it might not have been lobster pots after all. I’m kind of relieved that I didn’t head over to investigate them.

Tags: Cycling