A great day!

Today I set a new personal record on my Benson ride!

53 miles in 2hours 46minutes, at the average speed of 19.1 mph.

The day started pretty well: I had a good night sleep, after a lovely meal that Geeta cooked for us, and a beer.
We also watched Slumdog Millionaire, which by the way it's an excellent film!

This morning I woke up on time, had a lightweight breakfast, and set off on time at 8am. The sun was shining, the wind was calm and the temperature just right (18C).

Today I also tried a new way of keeping myself entertained: the radio. I used my mobile phone's FM radio receiver and put one earplug in so I could still be aware of any vehicles coming up from behind. Unfortunately, this didn't prove very successful. Reception was intermittent, the music was not that great (Radio 1), and when I arrived at the bottom of Pishill, I decided there was no point in that and turned the radio off.

Up to the sign for Lower Assendon my average speed was 19.2 mph, for a distance of 14 miles. The descent into Henley saw my maximum speed at 45 mph.

The climb from the sign for Lower Assendon to the bottom of Pishill, a distance of 3.86 miles, took 13m 12s, at an average of 17.5 mph, with a max speed of 19.1 mph.

The Pishill climb section, up to the junction with Red Lane, a distance of 1.98 miles, took 9m 23s, at an average speed of 12.7 mph and max speed of 16.4 mph. In itself this was a great personal achievement, topped off by only using a 34x21 gear at the very top and overtaking two other riders on the climb.

At this point I had the only refurbishment of the day, an apple flavor Nutrigrain bar, but this time i didn't take my time to eat it, and instead kept the speed up, which also shows my in-training recovery ability is getting stronger.
I then hit the maximum speed of 47.3 mph on the descent into Britwell Salome. That speed was achieved without any pedaling involved: I assumed an aero position by lowering my body as close to the ground as possible!

The rest of the trip was memorable by simply the speeds I was able to keep: I made an effort all week commuting to work to use one gear higher then usual, in an attempt to increase my speed by forcing my legs into their natural cadence but at a higher effort level.

That proved a very successful tactic today: I consistently pushed one gear harder for the whole rest of the trip, and recover quicker during intermediate town sections.
I believe there is a natural cadence which occurs by sheer muscular engagement. This cadence represents a lower and higher limit to performance: push a gear too hard, and it will not be possible for your legs to deliver the power required, but push a gear too easy, and you will use more energy spinning your legs rather than do actual work.

I applied this from my strength training background, and it is working.
Initially you are going slower due to the lower cadence, but within a few seconds or at most minutes, your legs start pushing slightly harder and your cadence also increases, without a conscious effort, delivering a better performance.

Just like in strength training, this progressive overload must be very slight, since a too big an effort will exhaust the muscular system rather then merely stimulate it.

The bottom line is that today's ride is now my best ride and I have set up a virtual partner course that will enable me to push that little bit more next time and be able to beat this record soon!