Cold, grey, slight dampness in the air, wind (according to my weathervane, and the windsock on our neighbour's airstrip) a bit North of East. Nasty, but not appalling, so off I went with a tail wind helping me up the hill to Great Green from Norton. Meet Justin at Thurston and tell him how pleased I am not to have to lead the ride. Meet Mike Bowen in Looms Lane, and tell him that he really ought to do the route. As the small group on Cornhill becomes larger, I can hear people talking about the South wind and Hollowtrees. Are they quite MAD? What is it with these people and wind direction? They point to the Vane on the roof of Moyses Hall, which is itself pointing due South. A gust of wind blows through the buildings to the south.
So we set off for the South, but I'm still reluctant to accept the evidence; I'm a wind-change denier, no less. Justin leads us down to Glemsford, then Mike takes us via Foxearth to Semer – seamlessly. We have, by now, had several punctures each experienced by a different rider. At least this means that we have been held up by the fickle flint of fate rather than irritating rider incompetence. Before I get hate mail, I'll gladly put up my hand to being an incompetent in my time – once producing a succession of spare tubes (three) that immediately failed due to being too tightly coiled up for too long. Whatever the cause, we were a touch on the drag.
Justin had already decided to 'ride through' the café stop, and five more of us joined him. Mike, Jeremy Waterson (new member) Glenn Morris and Paul Barry. This left Adi, Tricia, Bungalow Deane, Graham, John Brookes, Ian (new rider from Nmkt) and Ron Fisher to enjoy their scones'n'drinks. Ron was enjoying (I think that's the word - Ron's a tough guy who wouldn't let on if it was different) his first ride after the January crash. It was total coincidence that we had travelled through some appallingly slimy and muddy lanes. As I write this, I am aware of a possible infringement of current guidelines. We had made no enquiries as to whether anyone knew the way back. Even though I happen to know that there were several who could manage the well-ridden path to Bury. It's the principle that's the thing, though.
Anyway we six wended our way, guided by Tom Tom II (a.k.a. Mike) on some tiny roads, and one, near Wattisham, that was worse any endured on the ride so far. The main positive we gained from our ride home was that six riders can do a chaingang pretty well (I really must point out here that we were heading into a NE headwind - see first paragraph) after a minimum of practice with two novices at the discipline (after Wednesday's attempts, I use that word advisedly). Poor Jeremy suffered a bit after a while, mainly through lack of mileage in his legs – though I think that the lack of tea-stop was the principal culprit.I got home (accompanied by Justin) with 58 miles on the clock, and at 1.15-ish. We wondered, just how late were the tea stoppers ?
After customary sleep in the bath, caught some Manchester World Cup round, and enjoyed the sight of our chaps back on top form in 4000m pursuit – and also our girls in their 3000m. Each having to make do with beating the Kiwis in the absence of the Aussies. SJH
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