Thursday, May 3, 2012

Wednesday 25th April. Very Wet, Very Short.


Would anyone be there? Should I be here? Rain is forcefully forecast by all weather sites viewed, and promised to be very heavy by lunchtime. I am, unusually, slightly early. I cycle in circles, and up and down the roads surrounding New Green Centre in Thurston. I see two bikes resting against the side of NGC - Sharon & another; Dawn perhaps? How long does it take to fix waterproof mascara?
Matt the racing motorist appears, slightly underdressed as usual. And also being slightly built there seems even less protection from the promised precipitation. Wind: east south east, gusts 31mph possible. I was thinking Thornham for tea, but Sharon has the better idea - circumnavigation of Bury St Edmunds so that, if the weather is seriously bad we won't be far from home at any point. I take us on an anti clockwise route which, with hindsight (a special power much in the news these days) wasn't the smartest move if Bury was to be at the centre of the route, since we were beginning 4 miles to the east. And, if we made it round to the west of Bury we'd have a headwind home. But none of this mattered at all, because we only made it round to Haughley before heading inwards. The rain had been gradually getting heavier since (possibly) Drinkstone. I had very roughly calculated that if the rain held off we could cover at least 50 miles without straying further than about 10 miles from Bury - no longer an even remote possibility!
The homeward stretch was tailwind-assisted which meant that what was by  now quite heavy rain wasn't being lashed into our faces; Matt and I began to quite enjoy our swishing splashing progress through the puddles - but in my case, not quite sufficiently to consider riding straight past my house. I waved farewell and scuttled indoors for a hot bath, leaving my companions to ride the remaining seven miles back to Bury.   SJH

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Wednesday April 18th. Short Wet One.

I haven't attempted this for a while, the list of riders. We are now such a large Club, with new members nearly every month, that it can be hard to know who is who. I get everyone's names passed on to me by Peter - but I don't know what they look like. Photos, that might help. Anyway, we were: Glenn Morris, Guy Lesser, Will Mapus-Smith, Matt Parry, Mark Saunders, Dawn DiMarco, Sharon Calton, TomTom, Peter Heath and me (SJH). All forecasts were pretty grim - even the most optimistic, why is it that I try to seek out a better forecast? It's not going to change what will actually happen, after all. The promised rain held off until after our pitstop - but it made up for this by really chucking it down. The wind was absolutely as predicted, wild, 19 mph and gusting  to 30mph. I was very pleased that my "Lobster Claw" cloves are not only v v warm but also waterproof. Guy's breathable and waterproof jacket proved that it could only achieve one of those two properties. Don't worry Guy, I fell for favourable write-ups when I bought a pair of Endura "Deluge" gloves that had the word "waterproof" printed in yellow on the backs. Barely showerproof. Evans Cycles took it very well and refunded without quibble (just a "must be a faulty pair, I've used them all winter with no problems" to which the only reply has to be "yeah, right").
Peter entertained us
Pace felt quite brisk, possibly due to the youthful element - but maybe it's just subjective, like the Met Office weather website which gives the temperature and then a "feels like" number. So, pace medium feels like brisk. We are to go to Hollowtrees, which is actually Woodlands Café at Hollowtrees Farm, and is at Semer, as any fule no. As we near Lavenham Sharon peels off for home, and we peel off towards Preston St Mary, down to Brent Eleigh then up to Milden - marvelling that this was actually considered as a Mountain Points Prime in the Tour of Britain 2010 (admittedly, the Heroes of the Tour didn't have to stop at the crossroads partway up). The rain was still holding off as we arrived at Woodlands. Then there was a very loud drumming on the plastic roof of the entrance to the cafe, and on the sky lights in the room. Stair rods is the expression that covers what we saw outside, so we decided to dig in for a long tea stop. We'd arrived earlier than usual, and had time in hand. Every now and again someone would pop outside to check on the rain. Peter entertained us with a graphic demonstration of resuscitation technique - I can't recall how we got onto this - not realising that those at the far end of the table could only see his arms down to the elbow. Not able to see what his hands were up to, they just got the vigorous pumping action. Oh yes, and  his spirited rendition of "Staying Alive". Dawn had tears streaming down her face as we all laughed hard. Apparently, mouth to mouth resuscitation is no longer the priority, it is getting or keeping the heart going that's the thing. Peter quizzed good Doctor Lesser at the far end of the table about matters concerning  blood and oxygen and the good doctor confirmed the change in emphasis adding, dryly, that it was difficult to conduct any controlled tests.

The rain still sounded serious, but wasn't too awful once we were out in it, innitt. Those without mudguards suffered quite badly with the amount of surface water around, and all of us got the aforementioned soaking by the time we got home. Just 42 miles for me - and felt about right.

28th April, 2012. The beginning of an Awfully Big Adventure


Julian Claxton chats to the umbrella-man

Rain was forecast, and there was a bit of drizzle as I rode down to the Wheelers' HQ.   I missed Neil's speech, though he was still standing on a chair delivering the last few words as I struggled through the crush to sign on. It all felt like a Commissaire's race-briefing. Within minutes we were being urged to get a move on and ride down to Angel Hill for the official send-off. There was a quite impressive crowd, with a mixture of cyclists and "civilians" - relatives, supporters, the Mayor of St Edmundsbury and the Rwandan High Commissioner, who had a large black Mercedes (Reg No. RWA 1A), a chauffeur who quietly smoked as he leaned against it, and a man in a chalk-stripe suit to hold an umbrella. We milled around, tangled our bikes and dodged umbrellas. Once the Rwandan High Commissioner's speech was over, and we had rolled out Southwards behind Brian Aldiss on his hand-cycle to cheers and applause, we made a large enough group to cause a satisfying amount of traffic chaos behind us. Past the Rugby Ground and on, on, on to Rushbrooke Lane - oncoming cars inclined to give in and move over when faced with such a large and politely unruly group. By the time we reached Little Welnetham, there seemed to be fewer riders (had we split already?). Not the thirty-eight mentioned in Caroline's email - and far from the forty-eight claimed in the East Anglian Daily Times on Monday. Riding alongside Neil, I mentioned that I was happy to stay on the front for a while - and mentioned the German border as a possible limit.  I could tell how amused he was by how little his expression changed. I (look, I know this isn't all about me - OK?) met several new best friends as the group morphed and mutated and the cocktail-party-on-wheels element  got established.
Neil's interview:  "That's R-W-A-N-D-A"
The High Commissioner's Speech
 Names? Ah . . . names, um, yeah I got some names, but, well, you know how it is . . . Met two guys in smart matching outfits, one from Wickhambrook and the other from Bury. I only realised how local they were when I tried to take us all in the wrong direction, and it turned out that we were on the taller guy's training route.
Caroline, and my two anonymous chums

The groups were splitting up, and the front had to slow down several times. There was a wide disparity in experience; but we were united by our support for the incredible journey the Rwanda Quartet were beginning. At the front we ignored the huge weight penalty born by the our heroes, and pressed on into the increasing rain. We knew that they wouldn't want us to patronise them by going really slowly. We stopped at Bildeston for a thorough regroup, and for a couple
Caroline indicates it's time to go.

of riders to pop into major sponsors Lifecycle's shop to buy extra waterproof clothing. This was the last time we would all be together in one group, until Harwich. The further south we went, the heavier the rain and stronger the wind became - and the stronger the desire to get to our destination as quickly as possible. Neil had gone back to check up on two riders off the back, and I never saw him again. Even at the end. So "Stay Lucky, Neil!" as I might have said. There was a good contingent (half a dozen, maybe?) of Gt Yarmouth CC riders, being Julian Claxton's local club (sadly, only three of us represented the Wheelers. Me, Henry Wood and Paul Callow). They were satisfyingly impressed with Suffolk, even though we could hardy see any of the views on our route. Hadleigh's architecture was specially well-received by 'Ray'; it seemed that the deprecatory term they used for impressive buildings was "not a bad pile o' bricks". I pointed out that a lot of our fine houses were piles of bricks plus sticks.
The GYCC lads were very conscientious about directing traffic around our rolling road block (I know, we don't approve of that in the Wheelers) especially an energetic and muscular little guy with a voice like Jools Holland. I had a good chat with Julian, who is a professional photographer and told me about his awkwardness over appearing in the photos of others. I was forced to drop him near Mistley, because we were going up a steepish hill and, well, you know how it is . . . .
On the map, the road out to Harwich (well Parkstone, actually)  looked like a pan-flat road following an estuary. Not the case at all. There was quite lot of undulation, as with the rest of the Essex Coast round here. And when that finished, we had a block headwind for the final four or five miles, rain lashing us as we struggled along the main A120. Forty-two of the 6,000 miles the boys must travel have now been covered, leaving 5,958 to go. Paul Callow and I stood on the windswept car park of Morrisons and waited for our wives to arrive, everyone else had gone into the superstore in search of coffee. Caroline had turned up in Neil's pick-up - without Neil. She seemed reassuringly unperturbed by this (she had seen him several times through the afternoon, as they coordinated rescuing stragglers). I'm  sure we will all be thinking of the boys as they set off across Europe from Sunday morning. I didn't get up until after nine - and I didn't go out on my bike. I wrote this.    SJH

Today's  Kliban Cat Calendar page
Come on Julian - only 5,958 miles to go