Club run reports - 7th November

Category 6 ride led by Danny Hood

Only three riders today for the cat 6 saunter out to Vanstones Garden Centre.

I'd been warned about closed roads around the Codicote area and they turned out to be accurate. Fortunately this didn't apply to bicycles, and we rode along side the many taking part in the half marathon. The garden centre was really quite as you would expect, when the roads leading to you were shut to traffic. Not very fair to a business whose busiest day is a Sunday. 

The food was good though and we were soon(ish) on our way home. 

It was nice to see a couple of members who I haven't got to ride with recently. 

I'm guessing a bit under 30 miles, but a decent pace and back to base camp by 12.30.

Category 3 ride led by Graham Knight

Six Category 3 riders extracted themselves from the Cat 4 horde at Allenburys and set off en route to Baldock. We went via Codicote and Kimpton, and then north across the hills to Preston. There was then a slightly unusual route in order to take in Half Handkerchief Lane (just for the name) and St Ippolyts (because it's a hill-top village). On the steepest section at the top of the St Ippolyts climb Alex snapped his rear derailleur cable. He received little sympathy, it being well-known that Alex doesn't really need gears - the cable had probably seized due to lack of use.

Having witnessed the enormous category 4 group aiming for Tapps in Baldock, we decided it wasn't big enough for the both of us and took ourselves to Dizi. Excellent service and good value. After that we enjoyed a glorious climb up to Wallington in bright sunshine and with a strong tail wind. Then it was back home via Bennington and Dane End.

Category 4 ride led by Lesley Godfrey

A ride of two halves …

Having posted a hillier than average route, it was surprising how many people turn up (18!). A decision was quickly taken to split the group into two, Lesley leading one and Peter B kindly agreeing to lead the 2^nd group.  The ride out to Baldock was relatively uneventful, although the headwind on the exposed road through Wallington was hard work.  One rider who was feeling a bit under the weather, plus two others who had figured that a lengthy café stop (due to size of group) meant that they would be home later than preferred, decided to make take an early tea stop at Mill End Plants, then make their own way home from there. 

This left 15 of us who all had merged together as one group by the time we arrived at Tapps.  Luckily it was not very busy, but we were advised that anything involving any food preparation could take some time, so we all agreed to forego the bacon sarnies in favour of cake instead.  So the café stop was fairly efficient. 

As we preparing to leave the café, one rider realised they had a puncture.  Since we had agreed to continue in two groups, group 1 decided to get going, and group 2 would follow when puncture was repaired.  Group 1 had a good run home with a nice tailwind, despite the inclusion of Sacombe Hill.  Unfortunately the puncture repair was not very successful, and resulted in the rider eventually having to give up and call a family member to rescue them.  Group 2 finally got back to Ware around half an hour or so after group 1.