8:15 am saturday 6th april castle cary

as a result of extensive research made on behalf of the group, mr williams informs me that castle cary is holding one of its famous coffee mornings in the market square.

no mention of morris dancers in nick's info' but i can't promise that there won't be. nor can i promise any seating or tea cakes and definately no bacon baps.

only real question is which way should we go...

1. clockwise via shit'n smellitt and then face the wrath of a northerly wind on the way back from glastonbury.

2. anti-clockwise via glastonbury and face the wrath of the hill out of shit'n smellitt that richard adores so much.

... i sense a mass debate in the offing.

Don't forget it's an 8:15 meet!!!!!!!!! (that means you, nick)

don't forget meal at the churchill inn (wherever that is..) in the evening.

[b]

15 riders for a relative warm day - above 5 degrees!
With the sun out we set off for Castle Cary where they were having their twice annual fund raising event.
Summer bikes were out in force with Andy's Cannondale making its first appearance (very nice). We got to Burrington where it looked like the fast riders were going to make a break for it but we re-grouped at the bottom of the hill. At the top there were some supprises of placings with Kaira betting Andy and Ivan up the hill!!!
Then across the top of the Mendips to Rocky Mountain where 9 people made the wise decision to stop leaving 5 of us to continue on to Castle Cary. Needless to say the pace increased and we did'nt drop below 20mph all the way there.
At Castle Cary we enjoyed the cakes or in Ivan's case 5 cakes!!!
The return journey was no slower and we decided to have a second coffee stop at Sweats. This lasted for over an hour probably due to the nice weather and the fact we were all knackered. From there it was up Mudgely hill and the usaul rant back via Cheddar but with another stop at Paul Baker cycles for Paul Burns to have his back wheel alignement checked.

Stats - http://ridewithgps.com/trips/1224007

Knacker factor - 90/100
Tea cake rating - 9/10 (coffee cake, flapjacks, choc brownie etc)

Rip snorter of a ride. Be interested to see what the average was for the return leg. Enjoyed the cakes at Castle Carey but feeling very guilty about the amount of cake for cash! Surprised no-one has mentioned the hot totties that were serving it. And of course 'The Purple One' who seemed very friendly with Nick and a few others. Shame Neil could only pull some old boy who wanted to talk about the dark side.

In case you are Gordon reading this (unlikely I know), we had a very pleasant and steady ride to Castle Carey. 17's max all the way. Kept the group together with no-one being dropped. Added bonus of a second cafe stop for those among us who were finding the pace a little high. After all we are very considerate of the weaker riders and made no attempts whatsoever to ride anyone off the back. We all shook hands at the end and gave ourselves a pat on the back for a very sensible and civilised ride. Well done chaps!

PS - where is the Garmin data Martin?

Also - just had a great idea. When Mars is at the bar about to order we should all text our orders to her so she can tell them what we want! She'll get really pissy about that!

Yea right! I have'nt downloaded the Garmin stats yet but I know the average was over 17mph for the whole ride!

Agreed about the purple lady, she was very strange. She kept trying to talk to us about cycling etc. Nick does tend to attract this kind of person :-).

just a mention of a potential problem with your ratings system; is it 'future proof'?

i.e. in giving 10/10 ratings now are you suggesting that things can't get any better (worse)?

less of a problem on the cakes front as i dare say that 10/10 cake suppliers are much of a muchness, especially given the 'easily pleased' tastebuds of a knackered rider; in fairness, it's good that there are so many establishments out there that don't actively go out of their way to poison cyclists!

i do though see more problem potential with giving rides a 10/10 knacker rating now. are you sure that today was 'as bad as it can get'?

did anybody throw up at the roadside?
was anybody pushed home in delirium?
were the emergency services called?

i guess though, given the 9 and 10 rated rides that have already misguidedly passed through this site we now need to be open minded and accept that we'll be lucky to get through the summer without some 11, 12, 13... /10 rides. e.g. the chances of the lyme regis being less or equally painful as today are slim i'd say.

happy days, i guess it's what makes cycling so appealing.

love and kisses.

ps. i know that i didn't eat 5 cakes at the cafe stop, it was 3 (but it could have been 4)

Stats added to ride report.
More importantly, after receiving Ivan's feedback on the Knacker factor rating system (now version 2.0) I have updated mine to 90/100 which should leave a bit of room! This now means I either need to get alot fitter or I'll have to change the rating system to x/1000!

Call me insensitive, but I thought the ride was a doddle !

Maybe we can push it next time ?

Love and kisses
xx