Thought I’d start a thread by creating a post, but it turns out it is on the bogblog not the Sunday runs blog – not as computer literate as I thought.
Anyway, thanks to Alan and Ewart for getting us to the mountainbike centre at Llandegla through Holt, Rossett and Coedpoeth. Then back via a shorter route through Kinnerton and Chester. Just about made it back before dark with very tired legs! Great training for Llanberis though.
Nick as you’ve already put it up on the Bog section you can have my report here too – I’ve e mailed it to Richard so he can upload it onto the roadie bit but in the meantime…
Great leadership from the two Alans today – Alan Silver took one group to Holt – and Alan Kemp in the meantime was volunteered to lead the longer run to Llandegla, which is the one I opted for.
We did fine and stayed more or less together to the Bickerton Poacher, where we had a quick stop to collect stragglers. I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead, climb the hill at my own pace and have a comfort stop all of my own at the top of Gallantry Bank – unfortunately however as I stopped behind a hedge, the pack rode up and decided not to wait for me, shooting off along the A534, leaving me having to hastily reassemble my clothing and jump on my bike, to stand any chance of catching them. Unfortunately in my haste a large piece of bracken ended up stuck in my shorts, causing me some discomfort all the way to Llandegla, and some hilarity when I pulled it out of my shorts at the café!
I took some time to catch the group, as did a couple of others. Anyway eventually the front riders realised they’d abandoned the rest of us and we regrouped, and we all rode happily together (although some riders dropped off to go to Holt) through Rossett and Llay, towards the long 2 mile climb up to Llandegla, where it was every man for himself: Matthew and Alan up ahead, I gather Kevan chasing them, with Nick (on his hybrid) and Keith chasing Kevan, and Ewart somewhere in between, sucking on his boiled sweets. I brought up the rear with Lou and Dave just up ahead, and we all made it safely up to the café. Only one problem, Kevan up ahead had been told by a car driver that my group was “a mile back” and had become concerned about me, so set off back down the hill to find me – Lou, Dave and I had in the meantime taken a short cut so he missed us and had to ride up the big hill twice. Anyway by the time he arrived up at the café his beans on toast had arrived so a sense of humour failure was averted!
We couldn’t allow ourselves too long at the café as we were concerned about failing light, so despite the fact that poor Lou and Dave got indigestion wolfing down their late-arriving food, and Ewart had a broken rear hub, we set off fairly quickly. The route was mostly downhill all the way to Kinnerton and Chester, and we rode at considerable speed, thanks to the gradient, the tail wind and the fact that Alan and Ewart on the front were attempting to break the world land speed record. Eventually I cracked and pleaded for “half a wheel” and they relented. And so on through Chester (every light was on green so no let up there either) and because of the failing light, we rode back home on the A556 which wasn’t much fun because of the traffic, but it was at least fairly quick and direct – we got back home in the dark, with me feeling very tired and accepting of the fact that I need to do a bit more work before the Llanberis weekend!