[Sweaty Eds]

Wednesday’s are tricky for me.

[Sweaty Eds]

I woke to the shipping forecast..

‘…Lundy, West North Westerly 26mph gusting 38mph, Dogger..’

.. and seriously considered turning over and going back to sleep. However, the Beloved Chairman’s teacup throwing, hairdrier-style rebuke due to the poor turnout at the TT overrode any thoughts of this, and up I got. I dug out my winter wear and headed up to Bloomfield.

First to arrive was Diccon. He has obviously tired of waiting for all of us on club rides because he has handicapped himself by hand building a bike from old bits of plumbing salvaged from the tip, bailer twine, a cuckoo clock and duct tape. Dylan arrived, then Pete, Mike, the lad from Cardiff whose name I still don’t know, Gwen then Graham and Martin. Graham is obviously missing teaching because he took a quick register and made us all do our top buttons up. We had a chat about the absent Duvet Dynamos and Graham confirmed he had not received notes from anyone’s mum excusing them. The time reached ValleyRoad-o’clock and we were just about to leave when Ants roared up full of excuses. Headteacher Dumbledore was having none of it and our leaving was further delayed by Graham’s insistence that Ants write out a hundred lines of ‘Six pints of Magners on a Saturday is no excuse for tardiness in the morning.’

Without Maverick Matt to lead us astray we followed the prescribed route up through Molleston where the full force of the wind hit us. Headteacher Graham to the rescue again, he organised the bigger boys at the front of the group and us littler ones tucked in. I confess I was a little confused as to why Diddyman Mike though it necessary to steam ahead alongside Ants and Martin Mac, but he has just got new contact lenses so perhaps he is having difficulty with the relative size of things. Mind you, I couldn’t help but think that it isn’t quite the same without some Stag drafting or the Clover Train.

We headed towards Carew via Cresswell alternating between very very slow and very very fast depending on the relative direction of the wind. It was during a very very slow phase that I noticed how much water Martin Mac was carrying. Both bottle cages had bottles in and he had two, maybe three, more in his back pockets. I suppose he could have been using it for ballast in the hurricane force wind or maybe the latest medical research recommends drinking a litre of water for every three miles cycled, either way, it didn’t slow him down any and I was never close enough to ask him about it.

The group split in Carew, Headteacher Graham took the bigger boys, Ants, Dylan and Martin to Pembroke for detention and the rest of us headed for home. We picked up another Cardiff Ajax refugee, Rob, in Reynalton and were back in Narberth before noon.

Crap weather, lovely ride. Thanks everyone.

[Sweaty Eds]

All those that didn’t attend last night missed a real insight into another side of cycling.

Obviously, there were a few very talented competitors, their names were spoken in hushed tones as they arrived.. ‘Isn’t that Peter Lloyd over there?.. Is that Ollie Simon?.. Oh God, there’s Nick Brown, do you think he saw us.. ’ that sort of thing, but a real eye opener was the range of bikes on show. There were some amazing machines, tubeless tyres, disc wheels, tri-bars, pointy helmets, everything. We Dynamos came mostly on regular road bikes, except Flapjack who, as usual, rode a Mark 1 Dandy-horse fresh from the museum and Beloved Chairman Rees who rolled up a brand spanking new Stealth Black Scott which prompted Huw’s phone to go into meltdown as he frantically speed dialled Pembrokeshire Bikes demanding that they send the very latest models of everything to Neyland immediately. But the real surprise was Roger…

Let me explain. When I was a boy, my dad, who was a bit of a handyman, used to build my brother and I bikes from old frames that he’d found on the tip and various odds and ends he picked up cheap. This meant our bespoke bikes were certainly one of a kind and he could generally be relied upon to update our steeds to keep pace with whatever accessory was in bike vogue at the time. Well, I remember just after the Raleigh Chopper hit the streets that my brother and I wanted the Chopper style handlebars. My dad could only find one set of Chopper bars and these he put on my brother’s bike, I had to make do with something my dad called Cow Bars. Basically, the Cow Bars were similar to today’s mountain bike handlebars, but much, much wider. To this day I have a spookily long arm span in relation to my height, a quirk that more than one medical professional has put down to me having to frantically grapple for the brakes whilst my arms were doing the splits. Anyway, the Cow Bars experiment was quite short-lived due to an unfortunate incident where I managed to scratch both my dad’s and our neighbour’s cars simultaneously. My brother’s Chopper-style bars, on the other hand, proved a huge hit and lasted considerably longer, in fact, I’m not sure he would ever have taken them off if he hadn’t impailed his little boys bits on said bars after suffering a speed wobble on Thornbury hill whilst showing off to his mates by standing on his saddle. After this brush with Social Services my dad took the fertility-threatening bars from my brother’s bike and put them on the top shelf in his workshop. And that was the last I thought I’d see of them,.. so imagine my surprise when I saw what Roger was riding on Wednesday night.

Roger’s travails with his Orbea are well documented, no carbon left in Spain to build the beast, infuriating rattle when travelling over 20mph (not really a big problem for him, that one), inability of said Orbea to wait for teammates etc, so it wasn’t really surprising that he decided to ride the time trail on his winter bike. What was surprising was the fact that he had decided to swap the shopping basket at the front for my brother’s old Chopper handlebars, not only that but, rather ingeniously, he’d turned them over and fashioned them into extreme tri-bars in the hope that they’d offer him some aerodynamic advantage when in the tuck position. The use of a couple of old colostomy bags from the failed He-poo experiment as elbow supports was inspired. I’ve got to be honest, I’m not sure exactly what benefit he gained from his ‘tri-bars’. When he passed me, on the other side of the road during the actual time-trial, he seemed to be struggling to stay in control with his hands gripping the upturned Chopper bars down by the front axle and his nose rubbing on the tyre, still, the slight seepage from the colostomy bags certainly made life difficult for the queue of cyclists looking to overtake. Graeme Obree eat your heart out.

I understand he is looking to create a homemade aero-helmet in time for the next round in a fortnight. A word of advice for anyone with a pet armadillo living in the Greater Princes Gate area, best keep them in for a couple of weeks.

Last night was fantastic, bloody well done everyone who took part. I’m really looking forward to the next round.

[Sweaty Eds]

Mate, that’s awful.

One question, why are The Village People standing over your broken and abused body? Oh, and didn’t there used to be a cowboy?

[Sweaty Eds]

Would also be an excellent opportunity for the NARCAR debut Dynamos to join the club and order their Dynamos shirts.

[Sweaty Eds]

Five and the Unfortunate Professor

The fair-weather five, Maps Mark, Bookworm Stag, Trumper Matt J, Stinky Andrew Ajax and Porky Sweaty Eds, met in their tree house hideout in the old oak tree at the end of Matt’s Uncle Roger’s garden. Aunt Vicky had made the five a delicious tea of marmalade sandwiches, fizzy pop and sherbet dib-dabs. Aunt Vicky was cross with Uncle Roger, some misunderstanding with a tandem and some photos on Facebook. Poor Uncle Roger spent the evening smoking his pipe in his shed. He must have been quite annoyed because, from the amount of smoke wafting out, it looked as if he was electing a new Pope. After finishing the final dib-dab, Maps outlined a plan to visit the eccentric old inventor, Professor Dan, in his Landshipping laboratory. Apparently the Professor was attempting to prove that asymmetric wheels could improve cycling performance in a fashion similar to the asymmetric cranks favoured by the wealthy boys in Whitland. The five agreed it was a super idea and, with a thunderous parp from Trumper, off the boys set.

They bumped into one of the gypsies from the camp in Clunderwen who offered three shillings and six for the five’s bikes ‘As scrap’. Stinky took him to one side and patiently explained that the bikes where made from carbon and that he’d better sling his hook sharpish or the five’d tell PC Rees that the dirty oikes had been bothering them again. Whether it was Stinky’s words or something more pungent, the Carnie boy, Ants, retreated whence he’d came.

Maps certainly lived up to his name. This way and that the boys rode, racing down the hills, cursing and swearing their way up others, all the while closing in on Landshipping and the crazy Professor. In truth, the boys would have been there sooner if Bookworm hadn’t insisted on stopping to write a poem when, in tears, he spied a little baby bunny gambolling in the woods.

Well, what a sight met their eyes on arrival in Lawrenny. In the distance Stinky had spied a strange figure bobbing up and down on a bicycle with egg shaped wheels. ‘It’s the Professor’ shouted Trumper, ‘Look how fast his legs are going round! Let’s go and say hello.’ With that he let out a mighty celebratory guff and, showing off slightly, lit it. Just as the five were edging closer to the Professor, the wafer thin rims on the Ova-wheels collapsed sending the mad inventor crashing to the floor. Now, dear reader, I cannot here repeat what the Professor shouted, let’s just say that Porky’s ears are still bleeding and Bookworm will not be using them in his next missive.

Disappointed, the boys turned for home. Their spirits were raised when Porky found a bar of Dairy Milk in his shorts and everyone had a slightly-ever-so-melted, share. Bookworm Stag recited his newly written ode, ‘My Beautiful Bounding Bunny’ to speed the five home in time for chocolate biscuits and cocoa.

Another topping adventure!

[Sweaty Eds]

To appease the keep fit sunbathers on their return, should we include a sangria stop?

[Sweaty Eds]

In the car park at Bloomfield just before six a large peloton had gathered. Much of the conversation revolved around Gary’s summer outfit, hotpants, a crop top and a liberal application of factor 50. Gary, Mark Clundurbanman, Pete, Leights, Jane from Turbo, a cyclist from Barnes, Chris from Folly Farm, Andrew Ajax, Dan, a big guy whose name I don’t know and my Sweaty self were surprised to find that Stag Jones had set his watch to Valley Road time but, after a few digs, we set off on the prescribed route. Somewhere between Heron’s Brook and the Molleston crossroads the cyclist from Barnes morphed into Johnny Mad Doig and then the science lesson began.

Now, I’ve got a science degree and still remember a little about the three laws of motion, Newton’s first law to do with inertia, his second is acceleration and his third is about every action having an equal and opposite reaction. Imagine my surprise when Dan revealed that he’d been doing a little physics research in his Landshipping laboratory and he’d actually proved Nick Brown’s forgotten fourth law of motion. This law relates to aerodynamics, more specifically the hole in the air punched by a cyclist. Of course much research has already been done in this area, Nick has already described to us the reduction in effort when cycling closely behind another, something I have enjoyed a couple of times with Huw in Position A, but what Dan excitedly revealed was that he had discovered that a larger, stronger, super-vortex-like force exists and, when conditions are right, the cyclist(s) behind do not have to pedal at all for mile after mile. He called it ‘Stag Drafting’.

The basic principle of Stag Drafting involves a headwind, a large group of cyclists and an ultra-competitive games master. Of course, Stag has to be distracted and provoked simultaneously, on this occasion Gary managed to engage him in an argument relating to what were bluer, violets or pansies and at the same time poked his bike a half-wheel ahead of Mr Jones’. While this was going on Dan briefed us all on the experiment and before you could say ‘Bradley Wiggins’, there we were, ‘Stag Drafting’. A couple of the less experienced riders lost their nerve and dropped back. The veteran Dan surfed the vacuum all the way up the incline to Jeffreyston, only popping out of the Stagstream to claim the King of the Mountains points. Johnny Mad Doig again showed his fearlessness by decending through Reynalton engulfed by the vortex.

I had to peel off in Jeffreyston because my brake blocks were melting. As I waved the group goodbye I could see that Gary had managed to steer the debate onto the old classic ‘scone’ or ‘skone’, meaning that the ‘Stag Draft’ still had some miles to run.

Thanks everyone, great ride as usual.

[Sweaty Eds]

We met at 9 in a chilly and windswept Bloomfield car park, Huw, Pete, Beloved Chairman Rees, Dan, Flapjack, Matt G and my Sweaty self. At 9.02 Huw received a text from 2/3 of the Valley Road Crew pleading illness. At 9.05 the remaining member arrived. I suppose we should be grateful that they put their clocks forward last week in Valley Road, shame it wasn’t the full hour.

Anyway, this week Huw decided to spice up the club ride by assigning us all characters to play, similar to a Murder Mystery weekend crossed with a game of charades, and then everyone try to guess who everyone else had come as. Pete had come hopelessly underdressed for the almost freezing conditions, so it was obvious straight away that he had come as Gary. Huw tried to lead us up the garden path by arriving on a sleek and shiny black number, a Stealth Bomber, I thought. It was only when he went into his routine of ‘pretending’ to have lost the route, patting all his pockets and frantically skimming through his many Garmin menus, that I realised he had come as Mr Bean. We set off, briskly heading towards Ants waiting in either Clunderwen or Majorca (hard to tell from his forum posts). As we spied Ants in the distance, waiting with a similar hulking figure, Our Beloved Chairman revealed himself by pretending that Ants was waiting with wife, Jane. The exotic kit meant that the shadowing figure had to be Andrew ‘Ajax’ Wright and our chairman was Mr Magoo.

This mistaken identity raised a couple of points. Firstly, it is more believable that a man who cannot distinguish between slender Jane Rees and an unshaven hulking graphic designer could genuinely confuse equine and bovine. Secondly, the closeness and body language of the couple waiting in Clunderwen must mean that they had come as Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon from the 1968 smash comedy hit ‘The Odd Couple’.

When we approached the Crymych city limits we were averaging almost 15mph for the ride, all of us doing a very passable impression of a cycling club.

On the descent into Cardigan, Jonathon gave himself away. It’s not very often that you see someone fly down a hill at that speed, even less often that you realise that they are steering with their chin. Huw had obviously dealt him the Mad Doig Murdoch from the A Team card.

We stopped a couple of times in Cardigan due to Matt’s mechanicals, it was here that Dan went into character. He asked each of us in turn about our bikes, listened while we listed the pro’s and con’s, before scoffing and offering to sell us the bike we really should buy at a vastly inflated price. Easy one that.

Jon must’ve taken two cards because on the hill out of St. Dogmaels he toppled into a ditch, Mr Bump.

Ant’s mate, Mark had joined us in Crymych, he didn’t say much but it was only when he stopped in Llechryd and tied a fainting femme fatale to the railway tracks that I realised he’d come as a silent movie villain.

It was around this time that Matt really got into his role by having a second puncture. I was still unsure about his character until he announced that he’d actually burst his third inner tube before he had put the wheel back on his bike. He’d obviously come as Valleyman.

Flapjack was proving very difficult to guess as he remorselessly set the pace at the front. It was when we split into two groups with Mr Magoo, Mad Doig and myself joining Flapjack on a trip over the Bwlch and he suggested a three mile hilly addition to the route that I realised he’d come as Beelzebuub.

At New Inn we split again and I cycled home with Beloved Chairman Rees, no food and no water. It was after I’d struggled up Gelli and was looking at the hill at Pont Shan that I realised who I was. Totally Shagged.

Thanks everyone, great day.

[Sweaty Eds]

Brilliant!

Saw Bill Sykes earlier, him and Bullseye had been down the woods, he was concerned that the Watt bike might mark the pavement so suggested that we cover the area with mats. He’d obviously given it a fair bit of thought because he’d done a rough sketch and labelled the mats alphabetically. Turns out that bike 3 is on Matt G. I suppose it makes sense to someone.

[Sweaty Eds]

So I do a couple of hills every now and then. It doesn’t mean anything. It just relaxes me, that’s all. I could give them up tomorrow…couldn’t I?

[Sweaty Eds]

Well, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one thrown by the very strange goings on pre-ride this morning. The usual early birds, Huw, Beloved Chairman Rees, Flapjack, Pete, a rare sighting of Clover and my Sweaty self, were ruminating in Bloomfield at about a quarter to 9 when into the car park rolled Mr & Mrs Valleyman. It put me in mind, actually, of an iconic moment in Tour de France history when Pedro Delgado looked to have dropped Stephen Roche on the climb to La Plagne in 1987, so much so that when Roche appeared in the finishing straight just behind the swarthy Spaniard, Phil Liggett went ballastic on the mike ‘just who is this rider coming up behind, it looks like Stephen Roche, it is Stephen Roche’. Unfortunately, Nick B wasn’t waiting with his helmet cam to record the moment, but the Valleycrew’s dramatic arrival did prompt a mass checking of watches. The 15 minutes before we set off passed eerily slowly. In that time Ants and Gwenllian turned up and, just after 9, and winning his Valley Road timekeeper’s badge, Jonathon arrived.

I’ve got to say, it was bloody cold. I had every item of cycling clothing I possess on and was still a little chilly, especially my hands. My legs were quite warm because, before I set out I’d taken a pair of Ruth’s work tights from her underwear drawer and slipped them underneath my cycling attire. In conversation, Ants told me he had done the same thing. Our Beloved Chairman was cycling with us at this time but didn’t comment. He did moan throughout the entire ride however about something irritating one of his thighs, a sort of chaffing and rubbing he described it as. At the official toilet stop in Pembroke I saw what was causing the problem. It appears when he went to Janice’s drawer for a little extra warmth this morning he actually took the birthday underwear worn to celebrate his 48th last Friday and it was one of the many attachments that was causing him his local irritation. Whether or not this was the reason for him doing a Roger on Freshwater East, only he knows.

I don’t usually manage to get out for the whole ride on a Sunday and the fact that I did today meant I was concentrating so much on just keeping up that I missed much of the excitement with Short-course Dan crashing, various mechanicals and Flapjack’s mythical refreshments. I’m sure someone will fill me in.

I had a great day, thanks to everyone, especially Huw for the free ride between Manorbier and Penally. See you all Tuesday, remember the club social on Thursday.

[Sweaty Eds]

I will be there at 6pm, I will order a Cinzano for you and the usual pint of Doom for Mrs Valleyman.

[Sweaty Eds]

yes

[Sweaty Eds]

Count me in.

[Author]

Posts

[Sweaty Eds]

Wednesday’s are tricky for me.

[Sweaty Eds]

I woke to the shipping forecast..

‘…Lundy, West North Westerly 26mph gusting 38mph, Dogger..’

.. and seriously considered turning over and going back to sleep. However, the Beloved Chairman’s teacup throwing, hairdrier-style rebuke due to the poor turnout at the TT overrode any thoughts of this, and up I got. I dug out my winter wear and headed up to Bloomfield.

First to arrive was Diccon. He has obviously tired of waiting for all of us on club rides because he has handicapped himself by hand building a bike from old bits of plumbing salvaged from the tip, bailer twine, a cuckoo clock and duct tape. Dylan arrived, then Pete, Mike, the lad from Cardiff whose name I still don’t know, Gwen then Graham and Martin. Graham is obviously missing teaching because he took a quick register and made us all do our top buttons up. We had a chat about the absent Duvet Dynamos and Graham confirmed he had not received notes from anyone’s mum excusing them. The time reached ValleyRoad-o’clock and we were just about to leave when Ants roared up full of excuses. Headteacher Dumbledore was having none of it and our leaving was further delayed by Graham’s insistence that Ants write out a hundred lines of ‘Six pints of Magners on a Saturday is no excuse for tardiness in the morning.’

Without Maverick Matt to lead us astray we followed the prescribed route up through Molleston where the full force of the wind hit us. Headteacher Graham to the rescue again, he organised the bigger boys at the front of the group and us littler ones tucked in. I confess I was a little confused as to why Diddyman Mike though it necessary to steam ahead alongside Ants and Martin Mac, but he has just got new contact lenses so perhaps he is having difficulty with the relative size of things. Mind you, I couldn’t help but think that it isn’t quite the same without some Stag drafting or the Clover Train.

We headed towards Carew via Cresswell alternating between very very slow and very very fast depending on the relative direction of the wind. It was during a very very slow phase that I noticed how much water Martin Mac was carrying. Both bottle cages had bottles in and he had two, maybe three, more in his back pockets. I suppose he could have been using it for ballast in the hurricane force wind or maybe the latest medical research recommends drinking a litre of water for every three miles cycled, either way, it didn’t slow him down any and I was never close enough to ask him about it.

The group split in Carew, Headteacher Graham took the bigger boys, Ants, Dylan and Martin to Pembroke for detention and the rest of us headed for home. We picked up another Cardiff Ajax refugee, Rob, in Reynalton and were back in Narberth before noon.

Crap weather, lovely ride. Thanks everyone.

[Sweaty Eds]

All those that didn’t attend last night missed a real insight into another side of cycling.

Obviously, there were a few very talented competitors, their names were spoken in hushed tones as they arrived.. ‘Isn’t that Peter Lloyd over there?.. Is that Ollie Simon?.. Oh God, there’s Nick Brown, do you think he saw us.. ’ that sort of thing, but a real eye opener was the range of bikes on show. There were some amazing machines, tubeless tyres, disc wheels, tri-bars, pointy helmets, everything. We Dynamos came mostly on regular road bikes, except Flapjack who, as usual, rode a Mark 1 Dandy-horse fresh from the museum and Beloved Chairman Rees who rolled up a brand spanking new Stealth Black Scott which prompted Huw’s phone to go into meltdown as he frantically speed dialled Pembrokeshire Bikes demanding that they send the very latest models of everything to Neyland immediately. But the real surprise was Roger…

Let me explain. When I was a boy, my dad, who was a bit of a handyman, used to build my brother and I bikes from old frames that he’d found on the tip and various odds and ends he picked up cheap. This meant our bespoke bikes were certainly one of a kind and he could generally be relied upon to update our steeds to keep pace with whatever accessory was in bike vogue at the time. Well, I remember just after the Raleigh Chopper hit the streets that my brother and I wanted the Chopper style handlebars. My dad could only find one set of Chopper bars and these he put on my brother’s bike, I had to make do with something my dad called Cow Bars. Basically, the Cow Bars were similar to today’s mountain bike handlebars, but much, much wider. To this day I have a spookily long arm span in relation to my height, a quirk that more than one medical professional has put down to me having to frantically grapple for the brakes whilst my arms were doing the splits. Anyway, the Cow Bars experiment was quite short-lived due to an unfortunate incident where I managed to scratch both my dad’s and our neighbour’s cars simultaneously. My brother’s Chopper-style bars, on the other hand, proved a huge hit and lasted considerably longer, in fact, I’m not sure he would ever have taken them off if he hadn’t impailed his little boys bits on said bars after suffering a speed wobble on Thornbury hill whilst showing off to his mates by standing on his saddle. After this brush with Social Services my dad took the fertility-threatening bars from my brother’s bike and put them on the top shelf in his workshop. And that was the last I thought I’d see of them,.. so imagine my surprise when I saw what Roger was riding on Wednesday night.

Roger’s travails with his Orbea are well documented, no carbon left in Spain to build the beast, infuriating rattle when travelling over 20mph (not really a big problem for him, that one), inability of said Orbea to wait for teammates etc, so it wasn’t really surprising that he decided to ride the time trail on his winter bike. What was surprising was the fact that he had decided to swap the shopping basket at the front for my brother’s old Chopper handlebars, not only that but, rather ingeniously, he’d turned them over and fashioned them into extreme tri-bars in the hope that they’d offer him some aerodynamic advantage when in the tuck position. The use of a couple of old colostomy bags from the failed He-poo experiment as elbow supports was inspired. I’ve got to be honest, I’m not sure exactly what benefit he gained from his ‘tri-bars’. When he passed me, on the other side of the road during the actual time-trial, he seemed to be struggling to stay in control with his hands gripping the upturned Chopper bars down by the front axle and his nose rubbing on the tyre, still, the slight seepage from the colostomy bags certainly made life difficult for the queue of cyclists looking to overtake. Graeme Obree eat your heart out.

I understand he is looking to create a homemade aero-helmet in time for the next round in a fortnight. A word of advice for anyone with a pet armadillo living in the Greater Princes Gate area, best keep them in for a couple of weeks.

Last night was fantastic, bloody well done everyone who took part. I’m really looking forward to the next round.

[Sweaty Eds]

Mate, that’s awful.

One question, why are The Village People standing over your broken and abused body? Oh, and didn’t there used to be a cowboy?

[Sweaty Eds]

Would also be an excellent opportunity for the NARCAR debut Dynamos to join the club and order their Dynamos shirts.

[Sweaty Eds]

Five and the Unfortunate Professor

The fair-weather five, Maps Mark, Bookworm Stag, Trumper Matt J, Stinky Andrew Ajax and Porky Sweaty Eds, met in their tree house hideout in the old oak tree at the end of Matt’s Uncle Roger’s garden. Aunt Vicky had made the five a delicious tea of marmalade sandwiches, fizzy pop and sherbet dib-dabs. Aunt Vicky was cross with Uncle Roger, some misunderstanding with a tandem and some photos on Facebook. Poor Uncle Roger spent the evening smoking his pipe in his shed. He must have been quite annoyed because, from the amount of smoke wafting out, it looked as if he was electing a new Pope. After finishing the final dib-dab, Maps outlined a plan to visit the eccentric old inventor, Professor Dan, in his Landshipping laboratory. Apparently the Professor was attempting to prove that asymmetric wheels could improve cycling performance in a fashion similar to the asymmetric cranks favoured by the wealthy boys in Whitland. The five agreed it was a super idea and, with a thunderous parp from Trumper, off the boys set.

They bumped into one of the gypsies from the camp in Clunderwen who offered three shillings and six for the five’s bikes ‘As scrap’. Stinky took him to one side and patiently explained that the bikes where made from carbon and that he’d better sling his hook sharpish or the five’d tell PC Rees that the dirty oikes had been bothering them again. Whether it was Stinky’s words or something more pungent, the Carnie boy, Ants, retreated whence he’d came.

Maps certainly lived up to his name. This way and that the boys rode, racing down the hills, cursing and swearing their way up others, all the while closing in on Landshipping and the crazy Professor. In truth, the boys would have been there sooner if Bookworm hadn’t insisted on stopping to write a poem when, in tears, he spied a little baby bunny gambolling in the woods.

Well, what a sight met their eyes on arrival in Lawrenny. In the distance Stinky had spied a strange figure bobbing up and down on a bicycle with egg shaped wheels. ‘It’s the Professor’ shouted Trumper, ‘Look how fast his legs are going round! Let’s go and say hello.’ With that he let out a mighty celebratory guff and, showing off slightly, lit it. Just as the five were edging closer to the Professor, the wafer thin rims on the Ova-wheels collapsed sending the mad inventor crashing to the floor. Now, dear reader, I cannot here repeat what the Professor shouted, let’s just say that Porky’s ears are still bleeding and Bookworm will not be using them in his next missive.

Disappointed, the boys turned for home. Their spirits were raised when Porky found a bar of Dairy Milk in his shorts and everyone had a slightly-ever-so-melted, share. Bookworm Stag recited his newly written ode, ‘My Beautiful Bounding Bunny’ to speed the five home in time for chocolate biscuits and cocoa.

Another topping adventure!

[Sweaty Eds]

To appease the keep fit sunbathers on their return, should we include a sangria stop?

[Sweaty Eds]

In the car park at Bloomfield just before six a large peloton had gathered. Much of the conversation revolved around Gary’s summer outfit, hotpants, a crop top and a liberal application of factor 50. Gary, Mark Clundurbanman, Pete, Leights, Jane from Turbo, a cyclist from Barnes, Chris from Folly Farm, Andrew Ajax, Dan, a big guy whose name I don’t know and my Sweaty self were surprised to find that Stag Jones had set his watch to Valley Road time but, after a few digs, we set off on the prescribed route. Somewhere between Heron’s Brook and the Molleston crossroads the cyclist from Barnes morphed into Johnny Mad Doig and then the science lesson began.

Now, I’ve got a science degree and still remember a little about the three laws of motion, Newton’s first law to do with inertia, his second is acceleration and his third is about every action having an equal and opposite reaction. Imagine my surprise when Dan revealed that he’d been doing a little physics research in his Landshipping laboratory and he’d actually proved Nick Brown’s forgotten fourth law of motion. This law relates to aerodynamics, more specifically the hole in the air punched by a cyclist. Of course much research has already been done in this area, Nick has already described to us the reduction in effort when cycling closely behind another, something I have enjoyed a couple of times with Huw in Position A, but what Dan excitedly revealed was that he had discovered that a larger, stronger, super-vortex-like force exists and, when conditions are right, the cyclist(s) behind do not have to pedal at all for mile after mile. He called it ‘Stag Drafting’.

The basic principle of Stag Drafting involves a headwind, a large group of cyclists and an ultra-competitive games master. Of course, Stag has to be distracted and provoked simultaneously, on this occasion Gary managed to engage him in an argument relating to what were bluer, violets or pansies and at the same time poked his bike a half-wheel ahead of Mr Jones’. While this was going on Dan briefed us all on the experiment and before you could say ‘Bradley Wiggins’, there we were, ‘Stag Drafting’. A couple of the less experienced riders lost their nerve and dropped back. The veteran Dan surfed the vacuum all the way up the incline to Jeffreyston, only popping out of the Stagstream to claim the King of the Mountains points. Johnny Mad Doig again showed his fearlessness by decending through Reynalton engulfed by the vortex.

I had to peel off in Jeffreyston because my brake blocks were melting. As I waved the group goodbye I could see that Gary had managed to steer the debate onto the old classic ‘scone’ or ‘skone’, meaning that the ‘Stag Draft’ still had some miles to run.

Thanks everyone, great ride as usual.

[Sweaty Eds]

We met at 9 in a chilly and windswept Bloomfield car park, Huw, Pete, Beloved Chairman Rees, Dan, Flapjack, Matt G and my Sweaty self. At 9.02 Huw received a text from 2/3 of the Valley Road Crew pleading illness. At 9.05 the remaining member arrived. I suppose we should be grateful that they put their clocks forward last week in Valley Road, shame it wasn’t the full hour.

Anyway, this week Huw decided to spice up the club ride by assigning us all characters to play, similar to a Murder Mystery weekend crossed with a game of charades, and then everyone try to guess who everyone else had come as. Pete had come hopelessly underdressed for the almost freezing conditions, so it was obvious straight away that he had come as Gary. Huw tried to lead us up the garden path by arriving on a sleek and shiny black number, a Stealth Bomber, I thought. It was only when he went into his routine of ‘pretending’ to have lost the route, patting all his pockets and frantically skimming through his many Garmin menus, that I realised he had come as Mr Bean. We set off, briskly heading towards Ants waiting in either Clunderwen or Majorca (hard to tell from his forum posts). As we spied Ants in the distance, waiting with a similar hulking figure, Our Beloved Chairman revealed himself by pretending that Ants was waiting with wife, Jane. The exotic kit meant that the shadowing figure had to be Andrew ‘Ajax’ Wright and our chairman was Mr Magoo.

This mistaken identity raised a couple of points. Firstly, it is more believable that a man who cannot distinguish between slender Jane Rees and an unshaven hulking graphic designer could genuinely confuse equine and bovine. Secondly, the closeness and body language of the couple waiting in Clunderwen must mean that they had come as Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon from the 1968 smash comedy hit ‘The Odd Couple’.

When we approached the Crymych city limits we were averaging almost 15mph for the ride, all of us doing a very passable impression of a cycling club.

On the descent into Cardigan, Jonathon gave himself away. It’s not very often that you see someone fly down a hill at that speed, even less often that you realise that they are steering with their chin. Huw had obviously dealt him the Mad Doig Murdoch from the A Team card.

We stopped a couple of times in Cardigan due to Matt’s mechanicals, it was here that Dan went into character. He asked each of us in turn about our bikes, listened while we listed the pro’s and con’s, before scoffing and offering to sell us the bike we really should buy at a vastly inflated price. Easy one that.

Jon must’ve taken two cards because on the hill out of St. Dogmaels he toppled into a ditch, Mr Bump.

Ant’s mate, Mark had joined us in Crymych, he didn’t say much but it was only when he stopped in Llechryd and tied a fainting femme fatale to the railway tracks that I realised he’d come as a silent movie villain.

It was around this time that Matt really got into his role by having a second puncture. I was still unsure about his character until he announced that he’d actually burst his third inner tube before he had put the wheel back on his bike. He’d obviously come as Valleyman.

Flapjack was proving very difficult to guess as he remorselessly set the pace at the front. It was when we split into two groups with Mr Magoo, Mad Doig and myself joining Flapjack on a trip over the Bwlch and he suggested a three mile hilly addition to the route that I realised he’d come as Beelzebuub.

At New Inn we split again and I cycled home with Beloved Chairman Rees, no food and no water. It was after I’d struggled up Gelli and was looking at the hill at Pont Shan that I realised who I was. Totally Shagged.

Thanks everyone, great day.

[Sweaty Eds]

Brilliant!

Saw Bill Sykes earlier, him and Bullseye had been down the woods, he was concerned that the Watt bike might mark the pavement so suggested that we cover the area with mats. He’d obviously given it a fair bit of thought because he’d done a rough sketch and labelled the mats alphabetically. Turns out that bike 3 is on Matt G. I suppose it makes sense to someone.

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So I do a couple of hills every now and then. It doesn’t mean anything. It just relaxes me, that’s all. I could give them up tomorrow…couldn’t I?

[Sweaty Eds]

Well, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one thrown by the very strange goings on pre-ride this morning. The usual early birds, Huw, Beloved Chairman Rees, Flapjack, Pete, a rare sighting of Clover and my Sweaty self, were ruminating in Bloomfield at about a quarter to 9 when into the car park rolled Mr & Mrs Valleyman. It put me in mind, actually, of an iconic moment in Tour de France history when Pedro Delgado looked to have dropped Stephen Roche on the climb to La Plagne in 1987, so much so that when Roche appeared in the finishing straight just behind the swarthy Spaniard, Phil Liggett went ballastic on the mike ‘just who is this rider coming up behind, it looks like Stephen Roche, it is Stephen Roche’. Unfortunately, Nick B wasn’t waiting with his helmet cam to record the moment, but the Valleycrew’s dramatic arrival did prompt a mass checking of watches. The 15 minutes before we set off passed eerily slowly. In that time Ants and Gwenllian turned up and, just after 9, and winning his Valley Road timekeeper’s badge, Jonathon arrived.

I’ve got to say, it was bloody cold. I had every item of cycling clothing I possess on and was still a little chilly, especially my hands. My legs were quite warm because, before I set out I’d taken a pair of Ruth’s work tights from her underwear drawer and slipped them underneath my cycling attire. In conversation, Ants told me he had done the same thing. Our Beloved Chairman was cycling with us at this time but didn’t comment. He did moan throughout the entire ride however about something irritating one of his thighs, a sort of chaffing and rubbing he described it as. At the official toilet stop in Pembroke I saw what was causing the problem. It appears when he went to Janice’s drawer for a little extra warmth this morning he actually took the birthday underwear worn to celebrate his 48th last Friday and it was one of the many attachments that was causing him his local irritation. Whether or not this was the reason for him doing a Roger on Freshwater East, only he knows.

I don’t usually manage to get out for the whole ride on a Sunday and the fact that I did today meant I was concentrating so much on just keeping up that I missed much of the excitement with Short-course Dan crashing, various mechanicals and Flapjack’s mythical refreshments. I’m sure someone will fill me in.

I had a great day, thanks to everyone, especially Huw for the free ride between Manorbier and Penally. See you all Tuesday, remember the club social on Thursday.

[Sweaty Eds]

I will be there at 6pm, I will order a Cinzano for you and the usual pint of Doom for Mrs Valleyman.

[Sweaty Eds]

yes

[Sweaty Eds]

Count me in.

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