Saturday 19th April - Farrington Gurney or Freshford

very close to calling shaftesbury this weekend but 13 degrees midday for WsM and 11 for shaftesbury may prove ill advised, given the need to eat outside.

so let's see if we can get to freshford and back without getting lost!

tri-curious can go and visit ernie at the farm shop in farrington gurney.

10mph ENE so we should get blown home.

PS. for those interested, paul and i are considering a ride in the cotswold's pretty soon, driving to old sodbury (M4 J18) and then looping around nailsworth, cirencester, malmsbury and tetbury. we would have done it this bank holiday monday but forecast is dodgy, so probably next bank holiday monday (may 5th) if weather allows.

let me know if you'd like to join us and we'll fill some cars.

A good turn out of more than 20 riders even though it was a very cold morning. We headed out via Puxton, Sandford and up the Col de Burrington. New guy Rob(?) was doing well, leading the bunch up the hill but nobody told him where the top was and he stopped at the icecream van where I took advantage and waved to him as i continued on. While we were regrouping in the side turning Mr B exchanged plesantarys with a local motorist who thought he was the local traffic police. We contnued the ride into the wind across the top of the Mendips. When we reached Farrington Gurney Mr B again exchanged plesantarys with a local motorist. This time it involved alot of hand gestures. He gets todays vote for our club ambassador.
We left a few at the farm shop and the rest of us continued on for Freshford. With a minor detour we enjoyed the many hills on the route to Freshford. As we dropped down into the village the tight corner nearly caught a few out. Mr B decided that his lead group had not done enough miles yet and continued on past the cafe :-)
On arrival at the cafe the volunteers jumped in to action where we had Manuel taking the orders, old Tom delievering toast, Hilda delievering coffee, and many others with very defined job descriptions.Dave B had a go at chatting up a couple of the lady volunteers.
We found yet another route out of Freshford which took in a massive climb most of which was over 20%. A few miles later we managed to miss the turning at the cross roads because we relied on Mr B's navigation skills.
Once we were back on the A366 we made good progress back to the top of the Mendips and joined the Mendip Motorway. On the way Ivan spotted a local builders yard advertising 'free clean hardcore' (got get me some of that) :-). We enjoyed the tail wind towards Burrington. Meirion made a break for it before the decent of Burrington. We caught him about half way down and also another loan rider who was a bit shocked to see us going past him as he was already doing a good speed.
Ivan - I uploaded my ride to Strava and I now have the downhill KOM for 'Burrington Combe down to Cattle Grid' and 'Hinton Hill Decent' so because you were faster than me on both I will send you the trophys
For the final leg we twiddled our way back to Weston. Ivan upheld his king of the sprint by managing to gain 500m across the moors to Puxton. Rich and I were unable to catch him as he deployed the sneaky tactic of only working hard when we couldn't see him.

Don't forget the club meal next weekend. Make sure you let Mars know - https://westoncg.forumotion.co.uk/t170-club-meal-saturday-26th-april

I forgot to do the caption competition last week so here it is - https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/GRVaPWIUYiKhnAW_KRk_l_nw0nKs8dxosfNiv-siOJg?feat=directlink
This weeks caption competition - https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_09pydAqpb0s5wmqm_s2k_nw0nKs8dxosfNiv-siOJg?feat=directlink

OJC - 2
TTC - 8/10 limited cake selection but the flapjack i had was excellent.
KF - 8.6/10 lots of climbing
Stats - http://ridewithgps.com/trips/2503523