The good thing about living close to the City Centre is that you can postpone making a decision about riding until the last minute. From the inside looking out, things didn’t look great on Saturday but I thought I’d give it a go and was extremely pleased to discover that 5 other (fool)hardy Clitftonites (ClaireG, JohnB, PeteS, GrahamT and RichC) were of similar mind.
We decided to head East, into the strong headwind, the rationale being that Millington would be a decent ride but if conditions got too bad then we could safely head for home. As has been the case for a lot of the colder rides this winter, the roads were actually really dry and felt much safer than the wet conditions and flooding we’d experienced the previous weekend.
Standard route out through Bossall to Leavening, we climbed straight out the top and onto Thixendale where the wind direction meant it was an effort to achieve 10mph on the descent but an easier job than normal to climb out. Claire had a puncture just before the junction with the A166 but we were soon on the road again and facing the fiercest wind-chill factor of the day before reaching the sanctuary of the turn at Huggate. Rich was temporarily relieved of his duties on the front at this point and set free to have a blast through Millington Pastures.
The Rambler’s Rest cafe, and its open fires, was more welcoming than ever with scrambled egg on toast all round. We actually timed things really well as the heaviest flurries occurred, literally, while we were inside the cafe with the snow blowing in through the velux windows in the roof and landing on our table. This provided an excuse to eat cake and, rather bizarrely, put the world to rights with a discussion re. the merits of a dishwasher.
A tailwind all the way home, the only distraction coming when John picked up a thorn and our second puncture of the day. But this was dealt with in Formula1-esque style.
At 55 miles, one of the shorter but definitely one of the most rewarding rides of the winter. Once again, a big thank you to everyone involved. Claire did particularly well, getting her fitness back and sticking with the faster pace. John still wasn’t feeling 100% but looked after the group and Pete and Graham rode as strongly and consistently as ever. Special mention to Rich though. He was at the front for the whole day, went back down the climb at Leavening to check John was ok, changed both punctures, in truly arctic conditions, with his bare hands, climbed out of Thixendale twice and kept the pace up but the group together all day.
All good prep. for the Spirograph next week.