Bianchista: Kent

I Spent the past couple of days visiting the younger brother who recently relocated to Maidstone. This presented a nice opportunity to cycle on a round trip from London. Having never cycled in the Kent area before, I was unsure of what to expect from the terrain. A nice couple of days in the saddle to ease me into some more womens 100 training for the next 3 weeks.
Once out of London I was greeted by lovely rolling lanes, secluded for miles, punctuated with leg burning hills to grind out. I had a sucky headwind the whole way there and a good portion of the route home, which added to my malaise, carrying a rucksack with overnight gear. Lesson learned, next time il leave some kit at my bro's!

Speaking of kit, it was a day of new, with some glowing and not so glowing results. After 110 miles I can conclusively say the Selle Italia race saddle has to be one of the most uncomfortable perches iv ever sat on. My arse became grumpier than Victor Meldrew as the miles went on, and I swear the last 15 I was pretty much constantly out of the saddle to try and get some relief. Not a very wise move, rest assured the trusty heavy old Antares will be going back on there this week.

Anyway, I was testing out a prototype longsleeve Souplesse jersey from Rapha, and it was pretty amazing. In the same fabric as their short sleeve version, it had the same striped detailing. Kind of struck me as a ladies specific LS pro-team jersey. Very nice indeed. Although sad the sun didnt peek its eyes out from the clouds once on the rides, meaning the tan lines would have to wait another day to grow. But yeah, hopefully the Perren St crew will throw this one out into production, id go as far as to say its the best ladies product from them iv had...

I tried out concocting a home-brew energy bomb sachet for riding, favoring to start the rides on a fairly empty stomach and just top up a little nutrition when needed. I wasn't smashing hard at all so not much danger of a mega-bonk. Cocoa powder, peanut butter and a bot of coconut oil, and frozen in to something resembling a nasa space sachet. As amazing as they looked, they didnt stand the temperature test and basically melted into a runny paste within about 10 mins of removing from the freezer. Still fairly tasty though but i need to look at something in a bit more of solid form ahead of the etape and other events planned these next few months...

The ride home took a bit of an unplanned detour thanks to a road closure right at the top of Vigo Hill (I ignored the signs thinking I could pass so was deservedly blocked right at the top of the climb haha). I passed through some really quaint beautiful little villages, peppered with these curious buildings below

Thanks to some instagram knowledge dropped by experts in the field, im now in the know that these were actually Oast houses, kilns used to dry hops out for brewing. I loved seeing the little conical points peaking out from above the treeline as I rolled through each village around Kent.