Clifton CC

It was sunny, it was dry, it was lunchtime. Why not? I dug out my 3/4 tights and a longsleeve jersey, grabbed my unlined gloves and carefully lifted my summer bike down from its hook in the garage. I added plenty of air to the lovely skinny tyres, blew the dust off the saddle, and headed out onto the road for a brutal set of 2-minute intervals.

I say 'brutal' because I felt sick around halfway through the second one. But a casual observer would simply have seen a large, slightly wobbly bloke, sweating, panting and straining, looking just like a hardened sprinter except... slower.

Bring on the summer, I can taste the hacking post-race cough already!

The 'G' ride - Gill's Tuesday crowd - met up at the square at 9:15 - minus Brian who was struck down with D&V. As it was so pleasant I brought along my 'spring/summer' bike for it's first ride. Gill, Mandy and I had a lovely loop around via Buttercrambe, Acklam, Thixendale, Wharram - le - Street, Malton, Coneythorpe, Hovingham (cafe stop), Terrington, Sheriff Hutton and home. We all attacked the hills with gusto and managed around 70 miles at a decent pace.

Gill managed to leave her mobile on the bench at the square - we thought it'd be a gonna but fortunately a kindly soul handed it in at the art Gallery so she was able to retrieve it at the ride's end - whew!!