{"id":16904,"date":"2017-07-13T22:04:22","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T21:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.geoffjones.com\/?p=16904"},"modified":"2017-07-13T22:04:22","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T21:04:22","slug":"ride-swim-ride-to-letchworth-outdoor-pool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/?p=16904","title":{"rendered":"Ride-Swim-Ride to Letchworth Outdoor Pool"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today I decided to go and try the Letchworth Outdoor Pool for swimming. It&#8217;s only 27 miles from Cambridge so I thought it would make an excellent ride as well as a swim. The cycle.travel website created a circular route of 63 miles (100km) with quite a few hills.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Basingbourn_Spa.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-16905\" src=\"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Basingbourn_Spa-300x206.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"206\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Basingbourn_Spa-300x206.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Basingbourn_Spa-1024x704.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Basingbourn_Spa-768x528.jpg 768w, https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Basingbourn_Spa-1536x1057.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Basingbourn_Spa-2048x1409.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>The ride out was OK apart from the busy road near Foxton where they expect you to cross it then return once over crossing! A total nightmare with the huge queue passing after the gates go up \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0The SPAR in Bassingbourn is quite unbelievable behind its armour plating and anti-ram\u00a0railings! So reminded me of Creswell in bygone times, not a respectable Cambridge village.<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise, a lovely ride and the pool was quickly reached in just over two hours. What an excellent pool it is too! 50 metres long 8 lanes wide, heated and with real lifeguards\u00a0sitting on their high chairs on diametrically opposed corners of the pool. The entrance fee was only \u00a32.80 with a very friendly cashier. The place seems very well run and very professional. The showers are great! clean, really powerful, hot and a decent drainage system all about as far removed from Jesus Green as you can imagine. The surrounding grounds are well kept with a lovely cafe area overlooking the pool with no huge trees to block the\u00a0sun or deposit\u00a0leaves in the pool. I will certainly return. The only slight downside is the shallow end is quite shallow but eh it will teach me to keep my legs high \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>The way back was quite a bit further and much hillier so I think I will give it a miss in future and just return the way I went!<\/p>\n<p>A great day, tiring on my old Schwinn bike, with a 100km ride and nearly 1000 metres swam the Apple Watch even managed to record all the day&#8217;s activities correctly.<\/p>\n<p><iframe height='405' width='590' frameborder='0' allowtransparency='true' scrolling='no' src='https:\/\/www.strava.com\/activities\/1081442680\/embed\/2c08d3cf46deb4e5d201c4f4d1927c32ad918830'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe height='405' width='590' frameborder='0' allowtransparency='true' scrolling='no' src='https:\/\/www.strava.com\/activities\/1081757469\/embed\/17b1ab291432796b4f06cbefa6604264832c41d3'><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today I decided to go and try the Letchworth Outdoor Pool for swimming. It&#8217;s only 27 miles from Cambridge so I thought it would make an excellent ride as well as a swim. The cycle.travel website created a circular route of 63 miles (100km) with quite a few hills. The ride out was OK apart [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}