For a change, with a minimum of faff, I’d managed to get to the Pete’s house early. The pedal up to his abode had been a hassle free affair with slick shifting from both mechs and a lack of drivers attempting to smear over the tarmac. Pete was in the process of fitting his spare set of lights to his spare bike to lend to his mate (who I’m presuming wasn’t spare).
Leaving Pete and his neighbour to their fettling I wandered over to the car park behind the chippy to see who was out. Gezz had turned up to drop off some magazines for Roachy (old MBRs; not that type of magazine you perverts). I was quizzing Gezz on when he was going to be out next; when he pointed to his car and said “as soon as my rack turns up!†I was going to make some comment about getting his bike in the boot, but after looking at his new automobile I soon realised he wouldn’t have space for the Hairdryer, scissors and his bike!
For a cold Tuesday night we had quite a few riders and while most were still getting ready I wandered back over to the chippy to see if the new guy who’d signed up to the forum earlier had arrived. I gave it a few minutes and then set of round the back of the chippy just in time to join the rear of the group coming the other way. Standing amongst the group chatting away I asked Pete who we were waiting for. Me. Ah. We set off…
The main road we roll down was unusually busy with Andy and I struggling to get across while the rest of the group pedalled into the horizon. Finally over the road and through the lights we we’re greeted by Pete’s lights coming back up the road to see where we were. In a fine example of randomness and coincidence that follows us no matter where we ride, that was the exact spot where two community support officers were walking. Despite the fact that we were all lit up like a Christmas tree in a brothel, an officer noticed that one rider’s LED was on their bag and not on the bike. He also wanted to know if we were a club and if he was welcome to join us some time. We started giving him the Bad Brains web address when Pete told him to write it down in his note book. “ I know they’ve got em, my name is in a few…†he later told me.
Making false assurances to right the wrong, Andy and I set off to catch up leaving Pete dictating URLs to the law. Down at the gate we all regrouped and were just about ready to set off again when Pete’s mate needed to raise his seat post. Pete dipped his hand into my sack to get out my multi-tool (which Mrs Fat Lad bought me for Christmas and is ace!) and once it had adjusted we were ready to go again. Well not quite. In the intervening moments Amy’s fella’s lights had failed. Bugger. Luckily we had a spare commuter light between us and with a quick swap, finally we were off.
Rolling down the field Andy nearly ended up in the stream crossing the bridge, and we made our way over to the climb after the church. Pete led us into the valley after the pub to recce his new section, and after leading a few onto a free ride section Amy was the first to crash. We’d been pedalling for a whole ten minutes so it was time for another stop. Climbing out of the woods Amy’s fella’s chain got mangled up in his frame…. With a small amount of fettling and a large amount of swearing we got that sorted and we set off once more just in time for Pete’s mate’s seat post to fall out. He soldiered on to catch up and before we made our way the allen keys were out again.
We sauntered round the reservoir straight to the drop everybody noticing how worryingly low the reservoir was. While a mild winter makes for some great riding it isn’t improving our odds of being drought-less come the summer. It was smiles all round at the bombhole especially for the bombhole virgins amongst us.
Making our way to the next off road section I was chatting to Amy’s fella and finally got round to asking his name: “Martin, I’ve signed up to the forum today†so he was the new guy I had been trying to locate at the chip shop. I commented on how well my old CatEye RC230’s were doing and Keith dutifully reminded me that I had now tempted fate and they were bound to fail anytime soon. (My Fireballs were in for repair).
We whizzed through Beirut and at the top of the first descent the telltale yellowing of my lights started. Damn it the battery had gone. Keith was right, I’d jinxed it. “It’ll be fine†I told myself “I’ve eaten loads of carrots latelyâ€. To say the my riding from there on was a little precarious would be just a touch of understatement.
Rather than wading up the gravel stream we climbed our way up the side of the old scrap yard (that’s a junkyard to our American readers) and it was just as bad as the year before only I managed to make it to the top without any sharp foliage in my skin.
At the bottom of the last climb we all congregated and mused on the ride nearly over. I got out my Hip Flask and most had a shot of cheer me up juice.
Ok so it hadn’t been quite a thousand stops but it was hardly a flowing ride. Still a lot of smiles by the end of it.
Fat Lad