Splintering Again
The suggestion of a venue so Western you could almost see the Statue of Liberty, was enough to prompt us Easterners to arrange an EER reunion at one of our favourite lockdown venues; the Alma at Copford.
I arrived to find OD, the Hustler, the Gas Fuelled Pensioner, Fandango and the Essex Strangler sitting at the table I had reserved in a half empty pub.
We sampled Black Sheep, Guinness (Hustler, Fandango and Strangler), Moretti (me and the GFP), Speckled Hen 0.0 (OD) and Peroni 0.0 (OD). A qourate Quaffers' Choice Committee would have been struggling anyway but at least our apprentice turned up in a fit state to learn something this week.
What started as a fairly technical discussion about how long the GFP's metre long ruler is soon descended into a heated debate between Fandango and the rest of the legendary ACME Anvils 2017 Arrows Squad. His memory of that famous ride being somewhat at odds with the other three of us: Fandango - "I led from the front for 398 of the 399km distance only for Ted to overtake me downhill into York so he could get to the bar more quickly, I stood around freezing while you all changed into your morning, afternoon, early evening, overnight and arrival outfits and I didn't even get 4 points because of your navigational inadequacies", the other three of us "you turned up with only a thin jacket, a pack of three and some lube in a tiny saddlebag on your light bike, spent half the time disappearing down the road, the other half moaning about how cold you were and asking why we couldn't speed up to help you keep warm then wasted half the night trying to find the non-existent shangri-la services at Brigg you had been telling us about from breakfast onwards and to top it all you were last to the bar at York."
It was good to see our team mate again.
With Ambassador Humpy not around this week, things seemed to go much more smoothly with the staff (despite the Black Sheep being, as our apprentice too expertly described it, a bit sharp). In fact, so favoured were we that we were having our drinks delivered to the table with a friendly smile (ie not by the Hustler) by the end of the evening.
The whole effect was somewhat spoiled by our exit. I blame the Famous Witham Peloton. They had assembled into their flying wedge formation in the bar (always a risky one but worth it when it comes off) and were ready to fan out on exit to re-form into their leaving triangle. At least that seemed to be the plan, what they hadn't figured on was that the back door was now bolted. Cue a bundle of limbs and torsos that looked like the FWP only in a crumpled heap. At least the local football team were amused. The rest of us calmly waited for instructions from the bar staff and sauntered out as the FWP dusted themselves off and re-arranged into the less flashy but risk free just get out of the pub car park and head home formation.
My smugness was short-lived. The sight of Fandango on his wheeled scaffold gave me some hope of a relatively easy ride but he has clearly regained some of that 2017 ultra fitness and we were off at pace. In a desperate effort to keep up as he soared up towards Layer Breton, I stood up to exert what I call maximum power (about 150w) and disaster struck. My first clue to the fact I had forgotten to finish the rebuild after swapping various groupsets and bits around should have been that my handlebars weren't attached properly when I took my bike out of the shed. But no, I optmistically assumed that was all I hadn't done. What else I hadn't done included indexing the front and rear mechs and, more crucially, tightening the bearing preload cap and the pinch bolts on the cranks. No sooner had I put the power down than the non-driveside crank had slipped so that instead of having one crank at 12 and the other at 6, I now had both at 12. Worse, Fandango came back to see what had happened and then tut knowingly. Two tightening bodges later and I was finally home. I think it was cold and windy but I had other things on my mind.
