New bike for Jenny, and long distances are getting easier.

I am really really pleased to announce that Jenny has a lovely shiny new Specialized Elite road bike with all the trimmings, made possible by the government subsidies provided to employers by the cycle scheme. If only my employer would sign up to it <sighs>.
Having survived my very long trip out over the South Downs, my next ride was an easy 16 miles to Marwell Zoo, and it was good to realise that this does feel like a  nice short ride now.
On Sunday Jenny and I were booked for a 30 mile Sky Ride in Bournemouth, so we decided to up the mileage a bit (!) to meet our training program demand for 60 miles.  We set off early in the morning and met at the 15 mile point between our two houses. Usually I get there a few minutes before Jenny, but this time she beat me by at least 10 minutes, so the new bike is clearly a very good investment!  A quick 15 miles back to Bournemouth for breakfast, and by 10 am we were at Hengistbury head to meet the rest of the Sky Riders. We didn't have a great start, with poor Jenny having a fall, a chain jam and a puncture all in the first few miles, but after some hectic pedalling to catch up with the group, the rest of the 30 miles was a really pretty route and not too challenging.  We got to the end of the ride not really feeling like we had done 60 miles, and could have happily done more, so we must be getting more stamina.  Also, it was really noticeable how much easier Jenny was finding the hills on the new lightweight bike.
A couple of days rest, and then a 25 mile round trip to Winchester got me out of bed bright and early.  What should have been quite a pleasant ride became a bit stressful as my chain came off twice - once when pulling away in front of a lorry.  Not long afterwards and another big lorry decided it couldn't wait 30 seconds for me to pedal along a narrow section of road, and hurtled past me on a corner nearly taking me off my bike.  Heart pounding and adrenalin pumping for the next few minutes, I had barely recovered when my GPS ran out of batteries, and I realised that for the first time ever I had not brought spares with me.  This shouldn't have been a problem on a local ride, but I managed to get myself quite lost in Winchester and had to resort to Google Maps on my phone to get me back on track.  Even so, I made quite good time so it wasn't all bad news.
Our next ride is the longest yet - 90 miles in one day.  We have a tentative route plan which involves a fair few hills,  and the weather forecast at the moment is predicting heavy rain and thunderstorms, so this could really test our resolve..............................