Following Hayley's comet
Not only did we have a bright harvest moon to follow last night, we also had Hayley who goes spinning with OD. It turned out that Hayley was quite quick, which was amusing to watch from a bit further back
I intercepted the peloton near Terling. The first I knew of their approach was the sound of their inane chatter spreading across the still evening. The next was what looked like a cross between a very small oil rig and a crap UFO trundling down the road. Needless to say, they didn't slow down when they say me, if anything, they sped up. I just about made out OD, the Lynx, Jiber, the Hustler, Hotblack and the aforementioned Hayley in the blur of lights, pedals and reflective strips. When Jiber makes the effort to come to Spa he likes to try to rip OD's legs off on the way to the pub so, with Hayley to egg him on, he was setting a furious pace up front twiddling his fixie like a demented clockwork toy. The Lynx, the Hustler and I proceeded at a more leisurely pace and discussed matters of great import like the Hustler's previous life in the porn industry.
Long Jan Silver intercepted us on TMNH at which point Jiber and I executed our "Team Turn Left" plan -as much to annoy OD as to make a shorter route to the pub. We waited a while for the Lynx until it dawned on us that he had made his own left turn before the foothills of TMNH. With both of us on fixed, Jiber and I had great fun hooning around the lanes to Maldon and down Market Hill - I will never quite know how fast we were going because my Garmin was sent to indoor mode
We arrived at the Chequers in Goldhanger to see the Lynx already established. I swear he was purring as he stretched out on his bench with his energy drink. OD and his followers soon arrived after riding OD's greatest hits vol 27.
We sampled Butcombe by Butcombe, the ever excellent Darkstar by Hophead, Wherry by Woodforde and Ringwood's 49er (sadly off). Then we realised that they had Leffe on draft, what a pub ! Wherry took the Quaffers' Choice however as we didn't all get a Leffe.
Meanwhile OD was trying to persuade a, by now presumably somewhat bewildered Hayley, that she should come out with us more often. I am not that sure that regaling her with tales of how he has fallen off his bike on the way home and showing her his resulting scars is quite the approach most of us would have taken but he is the professional salesman among us and knows best.
After Hayley had made her excuses and left, we settled down to the serious business of ripping it out of each other. I can't remember such a merry Wednesday night for ages.
It was long sleeve weather for the way home but still a couple of degrees away from knee warmers. The only thing that made up for the depressing realisation earlier that we were setting off to the pub in the dark again was the incredible sunset. Even that will be lost to us before long. Time for Jiber to set his randomly actuated pub finder to winter mode
