Re: Sunday ride 6th November 2011

[ValleyMan]

A slightly chilly morning did not deter the faithful. One ‘apology’ was received from Roger (see above) who apparently has had a vein removed from his leg. I have to ask what was wrong with the other one as surely this is the whole point of one-leg drills at the Turbo sessions….

Anyway Roger missed a beautiful ride under crystal clear blue skies.

Mat G, Celia, Mark, Huw, Andrew M, Kim and I were honoured to be joined by our illustrious Chairman having overcome a bout of man flu and excessive drinking. A quick debate on a route suggested by Mark saw us head North towards Clunderwen, across to Llanfallteg up the hill to Hiraeth (where Mark said a fond farewell and free wheeled home leaving us to tackle all the remaining hills he had helpfully suggested), down into Cym-miles – where the sun never shines – up and across to Llanglydwen before the long drag up past the windmills to Blaenwaun (are you bored with this yet?).

On the ride past the windmills Mat succumbed to a front wheel puncture. Kim and Celia arrived at the top of the hill reporting that Mat was fine. However, seconds later Andrew received a call from a sheepish Mat who had no spare tube. Given the size of his saddle bag (there are people in London paying £0.25m for smaller flats) this was surprising. Whilst we waited, Celia had to borrow Kim’s mobile to phone home to say she was going to be later than expected. A simple enquiry on the whereabouts of her mobile resulted in general discussion on the perils of using a phone in the smallest room in the house; Celia’s phone had dropped down the toilet…

Luckily, Mat and Andrew appeared in the nick of time before the detail got too graphic.

A lumpy ride back to Whitland followed where Huw left us. We were having such fun grinding up the hills we elected to go back via Tavernspite and were treated to amazing views back to the Preselis and the ridge we had just sped down.

Andrew peeled off to see if there was any part of Roger that was saleable following his operation and the rest of us headed home.

In summary a lovely 35 mile ride long on scenery and short on incident.

PS Get well soon Roger!