Club Ride Saturday 1st February 2014

This was definitely a ride (game) of two halves. With a very strong wind on an otherwise pleasant morning, a decision had to be made as to whether we would ride into the wind on the outward or inward leg of the ride. We opted to tackle the wind first, which was a brave decision as the trip to the café stop in the High Street at Marshfield was certainly the hillier of the two.

My wife recently reached the end of her tether fed up with trying to launder a never ending supply of wet cycling kit. I was under strict instructions to come back dry. The weather can be unpredictable at the best of times and I wasn’t convinced I’d be able to do this.

Typically, there was a lot of surface water on the Foxley Road, but here the hedges provided a reasonable amount of cover and protected us from the full force of the wind. Having negotiated the ford at Luckington without incident, we soon swapped the hedgerows of Wiltshire for the crumbling dry stone walling of South Gloucestershire and rode into the fiercest headwind that I’ve encountered for some time. To make matters worse, at times we were also being attacked by a violent crosswind that over one particularly exposed section saw our bikes leaning dangerously to one side.

We arrived at the Sweet Apples Café feeling as though we’d earned our hot drinks and cakes. There’s always a warm welcome at Sweet Apples and it was good to see the ‘CTC Cyclists Welcome’ sign on the entrance door.  I opted for a slice of the fat-free fruit cake and then watched enviously as others tucked into the delicious looking sponge cake.

Having remounted and now with a generous tail wind we flew along the lanes. The joy of effortless riding and an incredible sense of freedom combined to make a heady cocktail. We sailed over short inclines without the need of a gear change and in no time at all we were climbing out of Castle Combe faster than I can ever recall. On occasions the cross winds still did their best to slow us down, but they’d had their chance and quite literally blown it.

There was a brief sprinkling of rain which started as we approached Norton, but it barely qualified as a shower and meant that we were able to get back to Malmesbury still dry. Mission accomplished!