Club Ride Saturday 16th November 2013

Back in August, as part of Malmesbury’s carnival programme, the Carrivick Sisters, a bluegrass and folk sibling combo, wowed a sell-out audience at St Mary’s Hall. Their finale piece, Today is a Good Day, is a very jolly number and proved to be a real crowd-pleaser.

I was lucky to wake on Saturday morning with the tune playing in my head. The record player arm (remember those?) was soon violently jolted when I was pumping up one of my tyres and the valve bent over and snapped off.

I managed to change the inner tube in record time and sped off down Bremilham Road having sent my son George W ahead to let the others know I was on my way. Turning left into Bristol Street, a horse lorry overtook me, suddenly pulled to the nearside and stopped abruptly. With little or no time to extract one foot from my SPD’s, I toppled over onto the pavement. Ouch, that hurt.

I arrived outside of the Jackdaws Cafe just a few minutes late to find a large gathering of riders eager to set off.

The High Street was as busy as ever and George A had to react quickly when a (female) driver opened her door without looking and nearly sent him flying.

As our impressive single-file line of cyclists streamed along Bristol Street, for reasons best known to himself, a pedestrian was strangely compelled to shout  ‘convoy’ at us.

Highway 61 (Foxley Road) safely reached, we settled into a comfortable pace, but soon found our progress hampered by the local hunt. Whilst those on horseback were extremely courteous, some of the hunt supporters insisted on tearing along the narrow lanes and had we not stood our ground, they would have forced us completely off of the road.

Note to the Route Master (Howard):  I assume this must be the hunting season, as just lately we seem to run into the hunt most weeks. Here’s a link to the Duke of Beaufort’s website, http://www.beauforthunt.com/  It might be an idea to factor in their meets.

North of Pinkney we split into two groups with some electing to warm up the seats at our intended destination, the tea shop in the High Street at Dursley. Conquering some very muddy tracks (I’m convinced they’d ceased to qualify as roads) we were rewarded with an exhilarating descent into Dursley.

Arriving at the tea shop, we found ourselves the subject of much attention from the purple rinse brigade taking a break from their Saturday morning shopping.  One lady took a particular shine to Tim H, despite him giving his feet an airing in a vain attempt to warm them up, only to drop him the moment Dave arrived. A special mention must go to the stollen cake, which was the best I have ever tasted.

The following group’s journey hadn’t been incident free. Simon’s black rubber stained hands bore the tell-tale signs of a puncture.

Happily re-united, there was a choice of routes by which to return by, with most, if not all, taking the Uley Road out of Dursley on the B4066 and then tackling the energy sapping Crawley Hill.

Disaster struck near Nympsfield when George W took a tumble cornering on a very greasy road surface. As I looked back to see what had happened, I became the next casualty, crashing to the ground as my bike slid from underneath me.

Undeterred we pressed on down into Nailsworth, but later whilst I was wincing in pain from my bruised hip, elbow and ribs, as we assaulted the hill up to Minchinhampton,  I was rather unsympathetically reminded of rule 81: Crashes may only be discussed and recounted when the rider or spectator has ended up requiring hospitalisation. Otherwise revert to Rule #5.

With the worst hills well and truly behind us, it was plain sailing back into Malmesbury for a hot bath whilst listening to my Carrivick Sisters CD. With the spills aside, today had still been a good day.

Official mileage: 40.86 miles, with some variations depending on the return route taken.

Garmin reference: http://connect.garmin.com/course/5157973 

The Cycling Monk