Club ride reports - 29th October

Category 3 ride led by Graham Knight

Don't mess with the weather! If the forecast is for a drenching just accept your fate.

We were scheduled to ride to Dunmow, a nice east-west route to avoid the predicted strong southerlies. By Sunday morning winds were lighter but Dunmow and points south were subject to a yellow rain warning from about 11 am. So, a diversion to somewhere far from Dunmow seemed in order. Baldock fitted the bill and there was no rain forecast there until after one o’clock. Off we set and all went well until about 9 miles from Baldock, at the end of Half-Handkerchief Lane, it began to rain. We stopped. Some put on rain jackets. I didn't because, well, rain wasn't forecast so it surely couldn't go on for long could it? The gods were apparently unhappy with this as the rain soon intensified and I got a flat tyre courtesy of a very large piece of flint.

The only upside to this was that St Ippolyts church was provided with a commodious porch over its gate which accommodated the whole group for the duration of the repair. The rain did not relent however, so it was a bedraggled group that reached Tapps Tea Room. Tapps provided good fare, including hot soup. The service was a little slow but then no one was desperate to venture out. By the time we did the rain had eased slightly. As we splashed our way back via Wallington and Ardeley, it eased still more until by the time we were back in Ware the sun was shining.
 

Category 6 ride led by Tony Dos Santos

I looked at the weather the day before and on the morning of the ride - both confirmed light drizzle around 2pm. As I rode up to Hertford I saw Kate riding down to meet the Cat 4s. After a quick chat and said our goodbyes. 

Waiting at Hertford, the sun was out and it looked like we were going to have a nice day. Two riders had NITS! For this acronym, please see a previous ride report from a couple of months ago. 

Eeeezy Rider Horn turned up. Claire and Chris rocked up, along with David, and Ian on his winter bike. Also, the real Kev was there. We were the magnificent seven! 

Unfortunately Carolyn couldn’t come, as her knee was playing up; we missed you today. We rode off late at five past nine as Claire hadn’t set up her Varia properly!

Claire was showing off her new Garmin 1040 Solar. If you know Claire, she is the aficionado of the Garmins :-). However, it was beeping at her and she didn’t know what was wrong with it, until, after about five miles, she realised she hadn’t pressed the “start” button to record her ride. Back to basics, Claire -  consult the Garmin manual! 

We rode over some rolling hills and before we knew it, we were half a mile away from the cafe. At this point the ride started to go wrong, as, yes, the heavens opened and we got absolutely drenched before we even got inside the cafe. The food was superb, The Brewhouse was busy as usual and we ate downstairs. 

Chris said we all had the wrong app - his app predicted the deluge from 11. However, he wouldn’t tell us what app he was actually using. 

As I was sitting down in the cafe, there was this horrible screeching noise and everyone looked round. It was apparently Daniel, who looked in his pockets and saw his crash alarm had been making that awful noise. Daniel said he wondered what the noise was that followed him through the cafe. We love you Dan :-)! 

Ian became Lord Muck, sitting on his throne (not to be mistaken with “The Throne) in The Brewhouse (see image).

We left the cafe with the rain still pouring down. If you know The Brewhouse, it’s on a massive hill and it’s not easy getting going again. The deluge of water was running down the road in a river as we went up the hill. We got to the top of the hill and Daniel said those immortal words on the Eeeeezy, which were “what hill”! 

A few miles down the road and Ian’s tyre had become somewhat deflated. Ian had a puncture on his last last ride, though he thought it may be a spoke that may be causing this one. Not being perturbed, he got his CO2 out and pushed the nozzle, but nothing happened, Ian blamed the nozzle. Upon inspection, I undid the canister and noticed no CO2 coming out - Ian had put on an empty canister in. Ian's second canister was also spent! You can’t make this up can you?! The rain, was coming down in torrents now, and Kevin had dived inside a bus stop. I pulled out a full canister and we pumped the tyre up. Off we went again. Everyone starting saying the weather was truly biblical, but I can’t say it was, as we’ve all been out in worse weather. 

By now, everyone was absolutely drenched, apart from me with my fully waterproof jacket. 

Daniel then announced: "Eeeezy electrical infraction - brake sensor got drowned so power failed - a cunning hack employed and it was patched and working. "No one had any idea what he was banging on about, so we all nodded in agreement!"

The second half of the route is somewhat lumpy, to say the least, and there were four climbs. Daniel, of course, is an Eeeezy rider, and he got up them with no issues, lol. Once again Daniel declared “What hills?”. 

We got to the top of Brickendon where Ian’s tyre had deflated. After a quick squirt of CO2, we all flew down the lane. 

The sun then came out for the last half a mile. Everyone had trench foot, but had thoroughly enjoyed the ride.  

Ian popped into Highway Cycles, where they found the thorn sticking in his tyre. All fixed and after a cuppa, we rode home. 

Written on the throne with a cold and running nose.