LEADON VALE CUCLE CLUB RIDE 518 Sunday 3rd November 2024.
A nice dry mild if a little dull morning greeted us and it was so good to see David Price out this morning still recovering from his off but feeling ok to ride also Colin Morris was joining us on a Sunday for some time and good numbers gathered before the off.
Sporty group led us away and we could see them in the distance to the Tirley junction then we never saw them again, we had a group of 10 probably the biggest group for a while and Peter was telling us about his 1200 kilometre ride along the Danube with his wife and some of the joys of travelling double booked rooms and sometimes no rooms but they really enjoyed the experience, and nowhere was back pulling us along up into Apperley where after omitting Deehurst from the ride due to floods we could now do it as they had receded so a bit of a diversion. Treadington and a closed road through to Gotherington, there were no serious closed hazards and no workmen so all was ok but the Evesham road was very busy and took a while to cross into Gotherington a beautiful village and the further you go through it the bigger the houses seem to get, we got muddled up with a group of Cheltenham cycle club cyclists who streamed past us only for us to pass them again on our way up to Alstone, I would like to say we caught and passed them but they had stopped for a comfort break causing Ken to pop behind a hedge as well. Up and over probably the only climb of the day it wasn’t very long before we were through Alderton and on our way to Beckford. It was here the ride split a little and on the drag up to Conderton Colin punctured, now usually a puncture is just an inconvenience, but not this one this was a learning opportunity, having found and removed the offending thorn with David’s tweezers why he had tweezers I don’t know but glad he had them it was a this point we realised that Colin’s new tube hadn’t got a long enough valve as the one we took out had an extension something I had never seen and with no small spanner we could not unscrew it from the punctured tube, up step Ken who also had deep rims to Dave the day lending Colin a tube which was only just long enough to pop through and allow us to pump up the tyre. All mended we proceeded to Tewkesbury over the Mythe and on to Forthampton where we took the intermediate route through Chaceley where we said goodbye to Ken, on n our way to Corse Lawn and the drag home. David and Peter were waiting for us and everyone else had gone so a wel deserved cup of tea was had and a watch of Richard and Jenny’s day 8 video from India which sometimes make our busy roads seem quiet.
An eventful day but it was great to be out and still in shorts.
Yellow Leader.
