Wednesday evening was a good one. Despite the train's best efforts I managed to be at the meeting point on time and even ate some dinner before throwing my leg over the Ribble.
The ride out was pleasantly convoluted with some dodgy surfaces which prompted much moaning from Oaky. Apparently hitting deep gravel at 20mph or more is a problem
We then had a minor navigational hiccup and ended on Hammonds Road when we should have been on Chapel Lane (western escarpment of TMNH). Naturally this gave Oaky the opportunity to once again regale anyone prepared to listen about my inadequacies when it comes to programming a Garmin and assured his audience that we would shortly find ourselves in Great Yarmouth. In fairness, due to my navigational inadequacies we did once find ourselves in Great Yarmouth but that's another story. Anyhow, having conducted a postmortem I didn't think I set the Garmin up wrong, I think I missed a turn instruction. But at least we gave the doggers a fright by Hurrells Lane ford.
Once back on track we had a very close encounter with a badger. Thankfully this time it didn't try to bite our front wheels, possibly cos Huggy wasn't with us.
I pushed open the front door of The Baker's Arms to be met by an enormous mottled grey Great Dane. It transpired it was improbably named Twiglet. Here (s)he is with companion Harvey:
From memory the assembled company were: me, Oaky, Brian the Train, Steve (Brian's mate), James (from Witham Cycling), Dez, Wow, Tomsk, Del and Slippy.
The landlady of The Baker's Arms asked me to mention they are holding a beer festival this weekend. If you ask the bar staff they will point you in the direction of their back passage where bikes can be securely stored.
Where shall we go next week?
