showmethecakes Sun Jan 10, 2016 10:06 am
Start the New Year as you mean to go on! So here is the second report for this year, a few more will follow and then I will probably give up for the rest of the year!
Surprisingly good turn out this week despite the unfavourable forecast from the BBC. Oh, hold on. No, the forecast was actually okay. Wait a minute, no - it's definitely rain again. What's that? Snow?
Anyway, sometimes I counted 15 riders, sometimes 14 and at one point 17! So let's be scientific about it and call it 15.3 riders rounded to three significant figures. I'll leave it to fans of the forum to decide who the significant figures are and who was the 0.3 of a rider.
Route out via toll road was uneventful for a change and despite a nagging head wind along the seafront conditions were not too bad. I may petition the council for a large red lamp to go up outside the Anchor as we always seem to pick up a couple of dubious characters hanging about on the street corner. The ride out was a case of dot to dot, the dots being obvious stopping points in case of rain. So the route out went via Burnham, Richie's and then Sweets where we decided enough was enough and pulled in for refreshments.
Fortunately Sweets must have anticipated higher numbers this year after all the publicity about the UK clocking up the most cycling miles on Strava and an increase of 23,000,000 miles on last year by providing one extra chair. Good job it was only the 15.3 of us that turned up!
About 15 minutes after settling into our tea and buns the heavens opened. You have never seen so many bedraggled cyclists flooding (pun intended) into Sweets. There is no better feeling in the world than smugly sitting in the warm and asking the new arrivals if it is raining outside.
After 52 minutes to be precise we left Sweets fearing the worst only to find the rain had passed. Hoorah! We set off back the way we had come with a slight detour through Blackford, past the windmill and down to the A38 etc. As we approached Shiplate the rain started up again but we didn't care so much as we were almost home. Andy made excuses about going on up the road for a pee but secretly he wanted to get home to do the ironing.
Nice to see some old faces out again (Neil, building a kitchen is no excuse!). Still no sign of the Baron though. Clearly he is still repairing the bat computer in the bat cave. No doubt commissioner Gordon will be on the phone soon. Make sure your butler passes on the message!
Mileage about 45.
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