Sunday, 18 May 2014

Club Ride Saturday 17th May 2014


Some of the Clarions soaking up the sun

There was once a time, and not so long ago, that you could very often fit the entire Saturday club ride around one café table. Other than the occasional blip, like last Saturday for instance, we can now manage to muster healthy numbers most weeks.  As the club continues to expand there might be a time when we have to start pre-warning staff at the proposed café stop so they can cater for us.

The hottest day of the year so far saw 10 riders assemble at our usual departure point. It’s always a relief when someone comes back for their second ride with us and so we were pleased to see Phil return. It must have been like starting all over again for him though as the two members he met last week were missing. Hopefully Linda will revisit us soon.

As is very much the norm now, two groups formed and we set off with the intention of both arriving at the Sweetapples Teashop in the High Street, Marshfield at around the same time. There was a slight variation in the routes with one being longer than the other to accommodate this.

When blogging I always avoid using terms such as the faster group or the slower group as they can be divisive. It’s really just about members being able to ride at a pace, whatever that might be, that best suits them. Westbury Wheelers colour code their different groups: red, purple, blue and green which equates to fast, medium, slow and those just getting started. The beauty of Howard’s ingenious route planning is that at the half-way point we all get to meet up and spend some time together.

I’ll dispense with the usual preliminaries and fast forward to our arrival just outside of the Castle Combe race circuit where a Steam Engine Rally was taking place. Visitors having travelled from the Chippenham direction were queuing nose-to-tail waiting to enter the site and so we rode down the outside of the stationary cars.

Castle Combe was strangely quiet. No doubt some tourists were caught up in the traffic backlog. Whenever I ride through the village I’m always reminded of the 1967 film Dr Dolittle, which starred Rex Harrison.  A collection of cottages and the small river they overlook were somehow transformed into a seafront. Other buildings in the village featured as Dr Dolittle’s house and also a jail. Filming didn’t go well though. The lack of constant sunshine seemed to take the production company by surprise and when the weather worsened, the production was closed down and moved to Los Angeles where it was recreated on a Holywood soundstage. More recently, scenes from the highly acclaimed film War Horse were recorded there.

Back to the cycling. Occupying all but one of the outside tables available at Sweetapples, we were unexpectedly joined by Heather and Simon. The safe arrival of Howard, Dave and Clive meant that we had now equalled our record of 12 riders!

A very pleasant time was had relaxing in the sun, but with domestic chores demanding attention, it was time to head for home. Me and Ted teamed up and took a fairly direct route back. Riding through Sherston we were overtaken by Jamie doing a pretty good impersonation of an Exocet missile hotly pursued by Andy Poolman. I eagerly await news of the outcome of this duel.

Garmin references:

Shorter route - connect.garmin.com/course/6585923

Longer route - connect.garmin.com/course/6584842


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