Another trip to our spiritual home last night.
I joined the Witham Peloton at Spa for my first night out in a while. Sadly, news of my presumably eagerly anticipated return can't have reached everyone as there were only two other riders at Spa. What was lacking in quantity was made up for in quality however with the Award Winner and Huggy both awheel. Huggy must have a secret Strava account where he records his other rides because, in his own words, he had his summer legs on and shot off up Terling Road with the Award Winner hot on his heels leaving me trailing in their wake. The fact that he didn't have his usual rack and panniers on probably helped.
We made good time along the classic route, picking up Grey Sheep at the top of TMNH and arriving at the spiritual home a few minutes earlier than scheduled. I am not entirely clear how the Award Winner made it there, he had borrowed AW Junior's glasses which meant he could only see things close up (at his age he needs a special prescription). I think he probably just followed my gasping breaths.
No sooner had we arrived than Tomsk hove into view. He was just back from a cycling trip to the Forest of Dean where he had been doing some colouring in.
Half way through our first sample we were joined by Gavin SSN and Tsar Nicholas II. Between us we sampled Dark Star's Festival, Fat Cat Mild and local staples Citra, Ridleys Rite and Essex Boys. The Award Winner was too busy throwing his lack of weight around ordering GavinSSN and the last of the Romanovs about to bother with voting for a Quaffers' Choice.
We actually had some proper grown up conversations about cycling before the evening descended into its usual nonsense. Things took a further turn for the worse when our resident geeks started discussing migrating on a cloud to a data centre that had been lost in the Amazon, or possibly Middlesex. If that wasn't a cue to leave then I don't know what is, so we left.
The wind made it a colder ride than it should have been but at least the temperature didn't drop later. It was nice to arrive at the pub almost in daylight though. I haven't looked at Forward Planning but doubtless OD will have us touring the county and possibly even Forrin during the long evenings to come.