Mmm......not sure what I'm going to do for my next trick. This ride at the weekend has been the focus of all my training this year, and now I've got a blank slate, but it would be a shame to waste my bike fitness, such as it is. So I'll have to find something else to do later in the year.
I'd just like to give some credit to my co-riders, a lot of who, unlike me, are not regular cyclists.
One had travelled through the night from the US on business, and he joined the ride at the 50 mile mark. He's also called Mark. At one point he made a sound as he was riding behind me which suggested he'd fallen asleep due to jet lag, and he had a bit of a wobble which I think was him waking up. I tried not to ride too close to him after that. He had to abandon one of our training rides earlier in the year because he was so cold and wet he'd turned into a smurf, and we actually left him in a barn for his wife to come and pick him up. The training ride after that he also had to abandon after he rode down a pothole the size of the Marianus Trench, and nearly didn't come out the other side. If ever there was commitment to a ride, he showed it.
Another finished the ride unable to change gear, with a numb hand, and he's been to the hospital this week to make sure he hasn't had a stroke or some other neurological disaster.
Another one lives in Peterborough, and pretty much had to drive straight from the finish back home. He also had quite a bad crash earlier in the year, and is still recovering.
Shyumu, some of you may know, he is fitter than most, and he was last seen riding up Alp d'Huez yesterday. I think the weekend ride for him was just a gentle limbering up.
Possibly the most lunatic of our contingent was a man who doesn't cycle at all, except for a two mile round trip to the pub once a week, and he has been doing his teacher training this year, and decided he couldn't fit in any training, and he would just do it on will alone. The week before the ride he rode home from the pub, and even though his chain had fallen off, he didn't notice, and just thought he was spinning a very small gear. I think that was until the bike stopped. He rode 50 miles on Saturday before having to be rescued, although he did rejoin us twice more during the rest of the ride. If ever there was a man who paid the price for no training, this was him.
There seemed to be a lot of episodes of bikes falling over on Saturday night. People feeling quite tired and forgetting about the effects of wind and gravity just kept leaving their bikes unsupported and hoping for the best. One of our number cracked the frame of his carbon fibre thing in just such a fashion, and he rode it all day Sunday with a crack in the frame. Once I'd been made aware of this, he was another one I tried not to ride too close to, in case his bike snapped, I didn't want to go down with him.
So, we're a mixed bunch. As well as doing it for fun, the ride also had a serious purpose. We were riding partly in memory of our friend Sheila Day, who died last year of Motor Neurone Disease and to raise some money for the Marie Curie nurses, who helped her towards the end of her life. At the last count we'd raised about £1300. Her husband Bob, not in the best of health himself, drove our support vehicle on the ride, so we didn't have to carry any luggage, although I always like to carry at least one pannier full of junk for myself.
So, all in all, I'm glad it's finished, and I'm proud of myself too. I'm glad that the mishaps we had were small ones, and that we didn't have to call any ambulances out this time, because on our last Coast to Coast, we had to call two out, although both of these were for accidents which took place in the youth hostel, rather than on the road.
I'll see if I can find some more photos.....
