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Gary's Private Ride To Finchingfield
6 December 2003
As no rides were scheduled for Saturday 6-12-03, Gary took it upon
himself to do another century. That's a 100-mile ride to those not
fully immersed in the arcane vocabulary of "serious" cyclists. Due
to the personal nature of this venture there was no publicity around
other groups who often bolster numbers on these longer and harder
rides, therefore, it was a small but very intrepid band that gathered
for a 06.00h start under the Green Bridge.
At this point, apologies must be made, firstly from Owen who had a
throat infection, and a general one for a text-only report due to a
lack of digital photography technology, which usually comes with
Owen. I hope that Santa Claus is reading this so a lovely camera may
appear in my stocking.
The aforementioned intrepid band was Gary, Trevor and Ken. A prompt
departure was made and all things went well as Gary led us into the
east. However, disaster was around the corner, almost too literally.
In the moments between meeting and setting off, Trevor told us how he
had noticed a flat tyre last this morning and had put a new tube in
his almost new and indecently good-looking machine. By the time our
band had reached Stratford, rather theatrically outside the Theatre
Royal, we were greeted by a shout for help from Trevor in grave
thespian tones. A few moments later, the offending article, a large
piece of glass was located and a new tube expertly fitted. With that
behind us, we jumped back into the saddle and had gone no more than
ten yards when, even more dramatically, Trevor announced that the
rear tyre was also flat. As he had no more spares and, being the
gentleman that he is, Trevor announced that rather than hold us up
any longer, while he repaired tubes in the cold and on the roadside,
he was going to limp home and that we were to go on without him. So,
then there were two.
On we went with a steady stream of chatter helping to take our minds
of the still very dark morning and the mileage that was steadily
being clocked up. I managed to think up of a great excuse for a
short break by claiming that I needed to stop to take off my shades
which had steamed up causing me to be riding blind in the early
gloom. With the dawn we were able to pick up the landmarks from the
previous ride over the route. Passing the point where half the rides
failed to follow Gary amused us both.
Eventually after 30 miles slogging into a headwind we were rewarded
by breakfast at Norton Heath and, later, after 62 miles, the
welcoming Red Lion at Finchingfield was the venue for an excellent
lunch. We even managed to meet and chat with the same old fellow who
we had met on the June ride. The afternoon session was much better
as the change of direction gave us a following wind. However, the
shortness of the day was to defeat us and at just before 4.00pm we
found ourselves waiting at Harlow Mill for a train to complete the
return journey. Our excuse for failing to complete the return trip
was that we had already done enough riding on unlit roads in the
pre-dawn session for the day.
Scorecard for this ride:
Mileage: 87.25
Riders: 3 or should that be 2
Strays picked up: 0
Riders lost: 0
Punctures: 1, or 2 if you count the tyres punctured in the same incident or 3 if you include Trevor's puncture in the ride preparation.
Breakdowns: 0
Detours: 0
Enjoyment quotient: Very high
Wind chill factor: Medium
Ken Peters
THWH (The Winchmore Hill Wheeler)
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