Saturday 18th July - Wotton-over-Edgy

the wind has been persistently south westerly for weeks now, but i'm not sure i can stand ANOTHER trip down south.

so we'll just have to lump a bit of wind on the way back and head for them there cotswold hills.

wotton-under-edge has a great cafe that martin, nick and i found last summer, plenty of room, a pleasant garden and good food. as i recall, i did leave a somewhat noxious gas cloud in the toilets before i left, but the worst of that should've cleared by now.

route out will be puxton, sandford, churchill and then we'll head for bitton. so tri-options can be chew lake or bitton. full route should be 99.9 - 111.1 (a big well done to neil who managed 99.9 last week - got him rare max kudos on strava.)

if weather allows we'll try to get to lyme in the next few weeks.

Hate Strava! I'm starting to look at segment times - bad for your health.

Anyhow, good turn up in the fine weather with a good variety of age and ability. Nice steady pace out to Sandford where Andy and Burns the Bread latched on. Slight delay at Churchill lights while we re-grouped and set off down the main road towards Burrington with a nice tail wind. Rather than slog it up to Blagdon Ivan was devilishly devious with a deviation that took us into Butcombe from the rear (ooh err missus). After a long slog up the hill in the direction of Winford we seemed to wait for an eternity at the top. Eternity didn't arrive so we carried on down Parsonage Lane into Winford where lunacy prevailed once again on the descent.

After a brief respite we trickled out of Winford and maintained a steady 35 mph on the run down to the roundabout! Nick and Burns lead the way hotly followed by Chris and just as I thought Ivan was out of it El Torro came snorting past like a Pamplona bull chasing down the peasants. Great viewing but couldn't honestly say how many victims Ivan speared on the horns of his steed.

The inevitable split came in Chew something (Magna? Stoke? Carta? Gum? Bacca?). Carlos got sucked along with the the long distance group and shot out the other side of the village before you could say: 'There's a man whose made a fatal error of judgement'. Realising his mistake he (and me) looped back over Denny's Lane to the lakes and round to Sutton Wick for refreshments.

After blaming Bernie for the power shortages experienced in Kewstoke in recent weeks we tried to explain to him that you cannot weld wood together to make a boat. Mrs Bernie has also been complaining about the lack of funds for her weekly lottery ticket after Bernie had put all their 50p pieces into the electricity metre to keep his shed powered up.

Return route was via the Obelisk, Butcombe from the front (contradiction there methinks), Wrington, Sandford etc. The Trowbridge express was slightly delayed by a faulty power unit but managed to get home as he always does.

Stats: OJC 1, NJC 0, TTCR: 9/10, Dist. 63 miles.