Saturday 26th July - phil's ride, bruton MEET AT 10AM

the final 'tour ' saturday was phil hemmings' final ride with the chain gang prior to his untimely death last year.

to mark this occasion we will be taking lunch together at 'the chapel', bruton, the venue of his last ride.

i have booked us into the club room to eat at 1:30pm. the chain gang will ride down from priory school, meeting at 10am. you are welcome to join us for the ride or drive down to bruton, whichever suits you. partners most welcome.

i have given the chapel a 'guesstimate' number of 25, but i will be confirming on saturday morning, so please let me know before if you wish to join us. my mobile is 07968697915.

as WOULD be the case with phil, he chose a most high brow establishment to bow out. food is not cheap and a set lunch costs about £25, (why didn't we go to truckers!) however, the setting is lovely and the food is excellent.

i have already emailed some people via malcolm's yorkshire list. this by no means includes everyone. PLEASE inform as many others as you feel need to know.

here are some others that i can think of that ought to be told (apologies in advance for those missed out, but you get the gist):
- the salters
- the snellings
- the olds
- dave trowbridge

etc. etc

also; could somebody also inform phil's family as i no longer have their contact details.

thanks.
ivan

hi chaps/esses,

i've just had the quote back from the chapel and they don't seem to be giving us much for our money (fancy sarnies at £22 a head + drinks.)

so i've looked at an alternative, the castle (just up the road and opposite in bruton.) check this link for menu/prices.

http://www.brutoncastle.co.uk/dining.php

they seem to think that £10 - £15 a head is their typical price from their lunch menu. i spoke to the owner (not the chef.) he's happy for us to come down and we discussed possibility of either choosing individually from menu or agreeing a bulk package price. he's getting back to me tomorrow once he's chatted with the chef.

this seems a better deal, but it's really a case of which people would rather do and how important people consider the venue to be.

either venue offers the same route, so no change there.

i need to make a decision by thursday, so please share your thoughts.

thanks to those who shared their opinions regarding bruton venue.

unsurpirsingly, it seems that most object to paying £22 for hot sarnies so we'll be going to the castle instead.

if you check their menu you'll see that most meals are sub £10 so it's much better value.

i spoke to the chef, i think it was the owner's wife (just like being at home!!!) and she warned me that, given our likely numbers of 20-25, we may need to wait 1/2 an hour or so for food but i said we'd be happy to chat for 30 min's (i hope this is ok???)

anyway, all other arrangements remain unchanged. the castle is only 100yds from the chapel, up the high st on the opposite side.

we've gone all secular!

15 riders showed up for the hottest day of the year to remember Phil Hemmings. We set off for Bruton across Puxton. At Churchill lights most riders headed down the A38 towards Lower Langford but Ivan and I took a cheeky shortcut to Burrington and waited at the top to see the rest of the peleton sweat their cobs off struggling to the top :-)
Several people peeled off towards Wells while the rest of us continued along the Mendip motorway. We had the usual dice with death to cross the A37. After the little rise near Batcombe we rolled into Bruton and headed for new destination of the Castle pub where we sat outside and enjoyed some excellent value food and drink, some reckless people decided alchol would be a good choice. Someone pointed out a hole in Pauls shorts unfortunately it was in a rather comprimising location and we were treated to some rather special views of him putting his finger through the hole.... Enough to say that i am now drinking to erase the mental pictures.
The return leg involved a second stop at Sweets. When we got to Shiplate we passed a couple of riders but as we rode up the hill one of the interlopers decided to try his luck and overtake Ivan. Some people thought it was all over but Ivan was having none of it! He kicked down a gear and over took the guy.


TTC - 8/10
OJC - 4
KF - 8.7
Stats - http://ridewithgps.com/trips/3072155