When is a club run not a club run? What are the numbers needed to make the ride quorate and not just another ride? Is 2 enough?
Rain was falling steadily when I left home this morning and by the time I arrived at the club the volume had increased somewhat.
Imagine my delight at 28 minutes past nine to find not another rider present. I asked a nice lady putting out cones and she said she had not seen any other riders. After waiting for a couple of minutes I went back up Burrows Hill to be passed by Stuart coming down. I shouted that there was no one at the club and hoped he would follow me. I assumed he had got stopped at the temporary traffic lights at the same time I saw Colin Walsh coming towards me. Colin had a soft tyre having punctured so we stopped and put some air in it before returning to the club. Stuart was not there! Disappeared! Where did he go? Answers on a postcard please.
Colin and I set off, first agreeing to go to Prees before later deciding on Loggerheads.
After a couple of hours of riding and chatting in the steady rain we again changed destination and headed for The Mills. Stopping to admire the scenery it was at last time to take our capes off.
Two Mills was quite empty so we received super swift smiling slick service. Beans and toast consumed we got back on the road again. The weather had cleared up by this time with a bright blue sky punctuated by Simpsons clouds.
The return run was at a steady pace and uneventful save for a puncture received by me in Hartford. Colin and I went our separate ways and I got back home with 80 miles covered, satisfyingly tired legs and a really filthy bike. Thanks Colin for a great day, I look forward to seeing you and many more of our erstwhile colleagues next time.
Postscript (by Ady):
In fact, Stuart rode into the car park to see me, (I had arrived at 09:25), Kris, who’d arrived about 2 minutes later, and Jim, who’d arrived a minute after that!
We were obviously concerned that we didn’t have enough navigators to lead out a ride, so, although we left the club together, Jim and Kris stretched out, and had a vague plan to ride to the Ice Cream Farm as an alternative.
I had other ideas of a shorter ride today anyway, so me and Stuart set out to just go up as many hills as we could in the rain, around the Delamere area, up to Kingsley, up again, and down again, then up a… (you get the picture, until we ended up at Yeld Lane, where I had to stop as a pin from my pedal had decided to work it’s way out, forcing un-scheduled un-clipping). We trotted up the Yeld, and were met by Chester RC who were having their hill climb competition. So we stopped to watch. All good fun, even though there were only 8 entrants! It was suggested that we should enter as well. I declined as I was on my Carradice equipped ton-weight Dawes tourer, and opted to take a few photos instead.
After this, we wheeled down to the junction and Stuart went on towards Tattenhall, whilst I opted for a circular route through the lanes home, where it had then stopped raining and was actually reasonably pleasant.
Definitely a non-club run…!
p.p.s.
So you mean i should have gone all of the way down the drive to the clubhouse instead of just peering through the gloom from the road?