showmethecakes Sat Jun 27, 2015 8:45 pm
Thought this might be a long ride so slotted into the bunch on the sea front rather than meet with the rest of Eastgate Priory Old Boys at the school. By the time the group had re-assembled on Accommodation Road there were about 27 of us heading at a very gentle pace to Brent Knoll. Nice to have Gordon et al join us for the ride out with the group pretty much keeping together to Wooley. A small splinter group split off at Wooley but most carried on to Bridgwater and Spaxton where there was a slightly larger schism with about 8 riders veering right to Cannington. The remainder continued up to Pines where the final cut was made.
Having got to Pines, Nick pointed out his broken stem. Now I've heard about this kind of thing before. A few years ago a man in Germany sued his girlfriend for damages after she broke his penis during some kind of over ambitious sex. Having realised this is not the stem Nick was referring to everyone let out a sigh of relief but that left only six riders to continue to Wiveliscombe.
It was a very pleasant ride with no real mishaps apart from Mark who decided it was better to overshoot a corner onto some gravel rather than go around the corner, over some gravel. I am sure there is some kind of logic to that decision somewhere but it's defeating me for now.
Cafe was excellent with a good selection of food and drinks and very polite and helpful staff. They even offered to collect our water bottles and fill them for us. Had a fast ride east on the so called main road to Taunton with a slight gradient and light tail wind. The other side of Taunton Ivan's shifter committed suicide - it was just hanging there. All life had gone out of it. Despite this slight interruption to our journey Ivan limped on before we took a second cafe stop alongside the Bridgwater Canal.
At the cafe Tony made the fatal error of asking Ivan for some staff room anecdotes. After mentions of banging back doors and knobs falling off the group skillfully manoevered (sp?) him away from such filth and discussed more important issues like: "Which shorts do you think have the best pad? DHB, fake Castellis?".
Ivan's eyes were bigger than his belly (which takes some doing) and struggled to finish his cake. Just as well it wasn't Pete or daddy Ivan won't let him out to play again!
A good pace was then set all the way back. I had an excellent view of all the effort that was going in on the front. It then all got a bit mad with Tony cranking the pace up to about 24 through Brent Knoll. On the road to Lympsham Scott then racked it up to 27 mph on the run in to Lympsham. As we flew around the corner by the church a car came the other way. Now, it's not like we were all over the road or anything, it's just that there were a lot of parked cars on one side and not a lot of room to get by. Tony took his time to consider how best to explain the sight in front of him as he headed for the car. Something like "oh f**k". Tony squeezed through, but no-one is quite sure how as Scott, Ivan and myself slammed the brakes on. I can only assume this is what it feels like when they talk about negative 10G. With my eyeballs dangling from their sockets there was a shout from behind as Pete, unable to stop, piled into us. There was a tangle of bikes and a few bodies on the floor but we survived. Only myself and Pete hit the deck. Pete was very concerned that there was blood dripping from someone. Not sure why he didn't think to look at his own arm!
Being men we politely discussed the finer points of such incidents before setting off again at some stupid speed. I think we all got home safely. Hope you and your bike are okay Pete.
Stats: loads of riders, quite a few jerseys, 80+ miles, one crash, several mechanicals, nice cafe, average 17.5 mph.
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