Last night was as close to a perfect evening social ride as you can get, apart from a couple of things, which I will come to later.
About 6PM Peter and brother turned up and we stood about chatting for a while. Torslanda arrived in short order, as did Dave NOTP and Dave's son. Dave's son wasn't riding with us, he was just there to buy a bike from that nice Mr Torslanda. Once the deal was done we got ready and were off. There was a bit of a draught, but nothing to write home about. It did become apparent, however, that we were a group split into two, smaller groups of differing abilities (and speed). Peter said that if myself and Dave NOTP wanted to head off at a brisk pace they would catch up with us at the pub. So we did. Following glorious lanes, past fields bathed in sunshine we followed a well worn path to Scorton, joining in (well, ok, riding the same way as) a Triathlon that was going on that evening. The marshals look a little bemused by us, especially the girl with the blue hair who kept trying to wave us left onto the course, when we really wanted to go right. Once at the pub, Dave and I settled down for a pint, some food and a chin wag. the beer arrived in short order, but the other three had arrived, ordered their food and were the best way through their first pint before ours arrived. Dave needed to head off to get home before he turned into a pumpkin, or some such like, so he left around 9. I hung back with the other 3 and more chat, more beer and, eventually, their food arrived. 45 mins, to get your food, is a little tardy. Once that food was consumed we decided to make tracks homewards.
It was a lovely evening, the wind had dropped a bit, the moon was HUGE and there was only a few clouds in the sky.
As we set off Torslanda's mudguard was rubbing against his tyres, quickly rectified by removal of said mudguard (which got tucked into my saddlebag, only to be lost a little further down the road, then recovered again by Peter whilst I ran another errand. At about Great Langton it became apparent that Torslanda was just not feeling it. Or rather he was, a bit too much (TMI, I know, sorry). His hand and feet were painful and his, ahem, other contact points weren't fairing much better. I chose to go the flattest way back, which, unfortunately involved Shark Lane, but Tors and Peter's brother never got there. As we got closer to Thrintoft it became apparent that even soft pedalling/scooting wasn't going to work for Tors, so walking was the name of the game. Peter and myself flew off, in the direction of THoFC, to grab Torslanda's car and then I would return with said car to collect them and bikes. This we did (I had to drive a FRENCH CAR
), once back, safely at THoFC I made sure the bike was securely on the back of the car and then waved them both off back in the direction of forrin lands (the left hand side of the pennines), but until I had nagged Tors a bit.
I went in, had a glass of water then went to bed.
Beer? Oh yes, I had 1 pint of EPA, very nice it was, but that went off, so I went to Doom Bar, which was just as nice!