At a NY Eve party at the start of the year I was chatting to an old buddy and got on to the wonderful world of Friday Night Riding. "That sounds like fun" she said, and before she had a chance to change her mind I got her to commit to it. To prepare her I started accompanying her around Richmond Park. She found a couple of friends who also liked the sound of the Fridays and before long this little grouping had an energy of its own and was arranging its own rides (Windsor, Virginia Water, Boxhill, etc etc).
In parallel with this Mrs hatler signed up for the L2B and was able to join the first three, plus a couple of other increasingly bike minded friends into regular rides, both to RP and beyond.
Just before the FNRttC in question my original buddy was given an old road bike, and Mrs hatler started getting left behind on her Orange MTB (albeit with non-knobblies) on the rides.
"You'll never get me on a road bike" had been Mrs hatler's default position for some time. But getting left behind changed that.
Before long I had found both her and original buddy almost new Specialized road bikes on eBay and now there's no stopping them. Mrs h must be getting out about four or five times a week and there's a gang of about five of them so that there's almost always someone available.
We had a family week away in Devon at the end of October and Mrs h and I managed to sneak out for four mornings before everyone was up to have a quick blat around the mid-Devon lanes.
What a difference a year makes.
