Well this was one way to spend Mother’s Day I suppose! We had a lovely day of it – warmish spring sunshine, clear blue skies, daffodils in bloom and a sense of summer on its way. We had a good sized group and were led very ably (if slightly sadistically) by Julian, off up to the big hill above Kingsley, back down to Frodsham, and then back up and over the same big hill again, round the back of the Forest, then through onto the usual route (with slight variations) to Two Mills. On setting off from the cafe, Chris found he had a broken chain. Kev, with great ceremony and accompanied by various lewd comments pulled on his latex gloves and sorted it out, (the chain that is) assisted by Titch (well he works in a bike shop after all) – they then found two more suspect links which also needed fixing. Kev advised Chris that if he bothered cleaning his bike and lubing his chain occasionally, he might find that he would go even faster – Sky will no doubt be in touch soon.
And so the return leg – led out at a challenging but just about manageable pace by Rouleur Jules – and the inevitable race through the Forest. Pete tried to do a Cancellara, James followed, then Nigel and Chris chased with Kev and the other Chris on their wheel, and Kev did a Simon Gerrans at the end, for once timing it right and pipping Pete to the line by inches. (I should add all of them had been sitting on the back all the way out from Two Mills, keeping their energy in reserve!)
And so home. With us today were Nigel, Kev, Julian, Max, Woody, two Chris-es, Ben, new boy James,Titch and Pete. Richard Munro, Rob, Paul and John Keen rode out with us but left us at the cafe. Kevin and John Conboy were with us for part of the ride, Jed appeared at the start in his yellow Jedmobile, but then rode off the front at Crowton and unfortunately turned left up to Norley when we went straight on, so we missed him – sorry Jed! -and we met Vince with his son at the cafe. Listing riders is a dangerous thing to do so if I’ve missed you off, please forgive me!
Now home and my lovely daughter is cooking my Mother’s Day dinner. Life is good!
Posted by Eleanor. Thanks to Titch for the photo