So against my better judgement and common sense I decided to ride with Bad Brains guys last night. Roachy usually also rides these too but he was still doing his Bob the Builder bit and decided he was cracking on with the tiling of his bathroom.
So alone i drove to the meeting point and ended up there early. Makes a very nice change to my usual lateness. With a couple of new faces about I was gutted to find that none of the usual back marker fellas were present. I was going to be lonely. Uncle stAn (never have quite figured out why he writes it like that) lent me his spare Walkie-Talkie (ten four rubber ducky over) and that buoyed my confidence in not getting lost. We set off after the usual faffing about, at the Bad Brains Pacetm (i.e. Feckin fast) coming very quickly to a steep road descent that was just a bit quick. I was whizzing along the tarmac grinning like a loon when I suddenly realised that if I was descending this much I’d have to regain the altitude sooner or later. Damn. After the descent we got into the woods proper and the ride really began. I’ll be completely honest when I ride with these guys I’m so busy trying to keep up that most of the ride blurs into a mixture of misery, pain and up hills, so when you finish another climb and turn a corner to see a dimly lit graveyard glowing in the night. A vision of macabre beauty it kind of sticks in your mind.
About two thirds of the way round and I’m really starting to flag and Steve piped up with the offer of a guided shortcut was too good to pass up. I followed Steve to a point where we would meet up with the rest and as Steve shot off to get changed and bring cake back to the pub I sat on a stone like Kermit on the stairs. I looked up and watched the awesome sight of the clouds racing across the evening sky.
I chased the guys for a bit further and at the top of a road climb I’d lost sight of them. I was fairly confident I knew where I was and as I crossed the road an old guy walking his dogs (I have a theory about dog walkers I’ll explain another) asked if I was looking for the other “bikers†and then sent me completely the wrong fecking way. Stuck in the middle of a green of the local golf course I used the radio to call for Uncle stAn to come and rescue me. From there on we were on to the final off road climb of the night on a horrible sand/gravel mixture that had me pushing up the miserable fecker from early on.
My cycle computer clocked the ride at about eleven miles and to be fair at the pace I was trying to match it was two miles too much. I really need to do some more riding and build on my fitness. But still…… it was a giggle.
Fat Lad