Waking up to frost tinged surroundings and a delightful temperature of -2 does make it hard to pull yourself out of bed. Seemingly a lot of people had the same thought with only a handful of riders turning up to the Legion this morning. Graham was on hand with the club dinner tickets and was to meet us later at Henbury. A small group went on Kev’s ride to Blaze Farm while a group of around 15 (which included Steve Thomas, Ewart and a returning Elliot after last week’s fall) headed to Henbury with the Wizard to look forward to.
Not wanting a repeat of last week we decided to go up through Castle and over the locks, through Leftwich and up to Davenham where we met Jack and also Jed on his trike. We pootled up to Three Greyhounds, turning left and followed the club 10 course in reverse before heading through Knutsford to Tatton Park.
I was really envious of those who were still tucked up warm in bed because it was freezing, your hands, face and toes hurt with the cold. It was all worth it though when we got to Tatton Park. It was stunning, the sun blazed down across the park and the mere looked gorgeous.
We headed up round the back of Ashley and into Mobberley. It was as this point as we turned on to the Alderley Edge road we saw 2 of the pro riders who take part in the Cheshire Classic. Thinking that it would be cool to ride along with these girls we gave chase, just as we were about to get on the wheel a shout of “PUNCTURE!” goes around the bunch. And that was it, the one and only time we would have looked cool, riding along with two pros and Tommo goes and gets a puncture.
Once Tommo had realised that riding on silk thin tyres in Winter is never a good idea we headed forth to Alderley Edge to climb up the Wizard. Within 10 seconds we had lost Giles and so it was down to the main group. Lots of teasing, testing of legs, gentle helpful pushes from Ady to Tommo and all the rest.
We met Graham at the cafe. Giles was certain he had never visited this one before. We reminded him that it was probably only his third club run ever so he probably hadn’t!
We headed home through Siddington, Lower Withington and Goostrey, I got home with just shy of 55 miles on the clock. An hour in the shower later and I’m finally warm but I’m glad I went out. It was a great ride by Al and great company. Looking forward to the climb of Mersey View next week!