Flat, Fast & Flat Out at Times

It was a reasonably disciplined ride.

Talk in Cornhill was centred on Peter Balls' success on the track at Welwyn yesterday, winning the individual pursuit in whatever championships were being held. There will be a report from Adi soon.
We were 16 this morning. 15 of us arrived (unsurprisingly) by bicycle and Neil arrived by speedy Motor, with his bike in the boot and dressed in not quite enough cycling kit. Mark Harris remarked that elements of Neil's current life style seemed to have led to a certain lack of attention to the wearing of sufficient clothing. Sounds of mirth echoed round Bury's historic city centre.
To general relief it was decided that we would go to Bressingham for tea - the wind was in the right quarter and there are no hills around Diss. It wasn't long before the first puncture - in fact it was before Ixworth - struck. The lucky rider was Julian Colman, who went for the bonus ball in life's anti-lottery by having the first replacement tube blow up on him. I know that CO2 cartridge thingies are supposed to be ever so good for blowing up tyres, but I hadn't considered it in quite this way - and in an explosion of gas, too. Fortunately, most of us were a safe distance away, as usual, though Hugh and John seemed dangerously close. Neil, sensing a rather long delay, finally went to investigate and managed to arrive just as everything was being put back together. This enabled him to hint at having 'sorted it all out'.

While we waited, chatting, Adi raised a minor niggle about these blogs; he felt that we were representing the club as a group that spent nearly all its time sitting in cafés. Well, Adi, how can I put this . . . .I think, in all fairness, that I should point out that shortly after the photos above were taken Adi leapt on his bike and, at a thundering pace, led the a struggling bunch all the way to Stanton before he swung off the front.

So anyway, puncture fixed, Ixworth disappearing behind us, and an arcing route (that's a hard 'c' by the way) out near the various Harlings to Quidenham (home of Quiddich, of course) where we took a brief architectural detour so that Neil could share with us his enthusiasm for the Village Hall, and excellent example of Tesco Revival vernacular. Ron Fisher and I took to the front at this point, and navigated faultlessly to join the A1066 about 400yds North of Blooms. Neil, Mark. Ron and I were pleased to have got to the counter first. When we made our way to a table we noticed that a huge queue of 13 cyclists had formed behind us. Whew! lucky or what?

We set off on the time-honoured route south on 1066, then left down Freezen Hill (I was spared the humour, because the weather was merely warm, neither hot nor cold enough for irony). Neil hit the front like a man fuelled by 1.5 scones (I knew I shouldn't have shared my second one with him) and pounded out a brisk tempo. Andy joined him, and upped the stakes. Neil raised him to 24mph Andy saw this and now we were doing 27mph. There were complaints. Sense prevailed, we eased. Richard Stiff and I, as Nortonites, peeled off at Pakenham, the rest of the field - sorry, 'ride' headed off towards Bury. I covered 62 at around 17.8mph. We didn't split (well, not permanently) and there was only one puncture

Those taking part: Juliette McGuire & partner, Mark Harris, Lord Dykes, Andy, Mike Bowen, Ron Fisher, John Dumont, Ed Bucknell, Deane Hill, Adi Grimwood, Julian Colman, Hugh O'Neill, Richard Stiff, Paul Callow and one's self.

SJH