A reduced ACME peloton composed of Bobb, the Hustler, Marco Pantani, Jiberjaber and me set off on the Asparagus and Strawberries yesterday.
We were soon joined, in controversial circumstances, by the Straggler. He had already amassed over 50 points and is aiming to go hyper but no amount of cajoling, pressure and charm could persuade him to move over to the dark side and join ACME. It seems that we are ok to ride with when his Sudbury CC mates are smashing it up the front of the field but not good enough to join
. He has said that a brown envelope of the right size might tip the balance though.
It was a windy and hot ride up to Wells with the usual slog from Acle to the Coast. It is probably fair to say that we were a bit guilty of enjoying relaxed stops and then trying to make up time by doing one in between. By the time we reached Wells there were plenty of weary legs. Jiber lit what he called his last match in a frantic bid to drag us to Weasenham before closing time. Never has the usually impeccably organised northerner looked so panicked as when he realised we had an hour to get there to make it worthwhile. We made it in time but there were few among us who looked capable of a sustained pull to take advantage of the tailwind to barton.
Luckily help was at hand in the shape of our new best friend Rob on Sea. Aside from the occasional token cameo appearance, he basically led us from Weasenham to Manningtree - actually there was a bit of a gap when he ended up pulling the wrong group into Saffron Walden but we soon forgave him and allowed him the honour of going on the front for 68 of the last 70 kilometres until the Hustler put in his usual Arrivee Spurt and hammered home.
Needless to say, Jiber had no problems at all with the distance and had clearly been overthinking the whole thing.
Our BCM participants had a bit of the after the Lord Mayor's show vibe going on but Sister Carol is now an SR
The Hustler is next.
As for me, I struggled badly. I managed to hold down my Macdonald's for nearly 10 minutes before throwing it back up and I never really recovered. It's easy to forget that 400k is a long way and get a bit blasé about the whole thing - lesson learned the hard way
