Brief 100 Kms report.
Arrived in good time slightly worried by the fact that the outside air guage in the car had refused to crawl above 13deg for the whole journey. It was on with the arm warmers and gillet before having a large mug of warming tea.
There where some very interesting bikes lined up, including a curly stayed Hetchins, several very nice Mercians, a couple of Roberts but no other Carltons ( Skip Bike was feeling a bit lonely at this pont )...Oh, and some Modern bikes as well
There was also a very nice Barchetta A la Rich Forrest ( but not rich )
From what I could gather about 75 where doing the 100 but I did not recognise any faces. The start was a little fragmented with some going off dun run style while others ( including me ) waited for Ken to give us the official "go"
The first half of the route was mostly flat and good progress was made to the food stop/control at the 100 bomb group museum. Cafe looked excellent but I had copious quantities of Marmite sarnies together with a Farmers Market Flapjack.
2nd half had a suprisingly sharp little hill that caught one or two people out, but the rest was just rolling enough to make it interesting. With about 20 kms to go the back of the skip bike became more squirmy than normal. Visititation.. but only a slow one. I took the executive decision to carry on and apply air every 5 Kms or so
Finshed just before the tube gave out in a total time of just over 4.5 hrs ( riding time of 3 hrs 55 minutes )
Excellent Tea and cakes at the finish, but I downed about 2 pints of orange juice because the skip bike can only carry 1 water bottle.
I can strongly recomend this ride, the lanes are quiet, the houses to die for and the route notes excellent.
( Also the longest ride the skip bike has ever done, I really am finding it far superior to my "proper" Audax bike. There is a morale there somewhere ? ( £100.00 vs considereably more
)
Just need to recover enough now to get an "evens" in Tuesdays TT.
