Club Run Report 2nd March 2014

The first Sunday of March brought with it the first tentative signs of spring, and a healthy turnout of over 30 riders - especially considering that the 'No Excuses' sportive which ran the day before - met on the Market Square to give Richard Ostler's northwesterly routes another crack.

We had a couple of attempts at these early on in the year but the rural nature of sections of the routes combined with icy conditions meant that we never got round to actually doing them. No such danger today, a chance of rain was forecast but nothing that would get in our way.

Arriving fashionably late, Mark quickly whipped us all into some kind of shape and asked me to take out a faster paced group on the medium length route of 42 miles. As the group was well in excess of 10, including 3 new faces that came with Keith, who we first saw a couple of weeks ago, my first thoughts were to take us out and probably split into 2 separate groups at some point. My thought process was further reinforced when Wayne & Lewis joined us soon after we set off as I was sure that they wouldn't want to hang about with the slower members of the group (I'm including myself in there!). North-west means Kimbolton initially, so via a slight detour through Little Staughton we went through the wide high street there at a very respectable pace and up the first climb of the day, Bustard Hill. Taking a single track road down to Covington and the bottom of the Three Sisters, only a slight ease in the pace at the top of the first sister ensured no-one was dropped, no sign of that split yet....

Joining the B663, we saw Mark's group at the roadside making repairs, someone else making a start to try and take Simon's trophy?

I'm starting to make a habit of taking a turn at the front at inopportune times and today was no exception. As we headed South, into the wind and an uphill drag meant that there was nothing but open road in front of me and given the quick pace of the ride so far, I was spinning away, a sure sign I was flagging a touch but Andy took pity on me after a couple of miles and dived in front so I could get my heart rate down a touch, top bloke! Down through Hargrave and Shelton, we were well over halfway and still everyone was together so we carried on towards Riseley. People started running out of steam by the time we got to the Keysoe bumps but by now there was only a few miles left so any thoughts of a split were gone and, besides, the usual thrash down Bushmead Road was looming. As is the norm, the quicker riders stretched their legs where Wayne took the honours.

Given that we had around 15 riders in the group and everyone was back at Nero's by 11, it was one of those infrequent runs where Steve Lyons put it best: 'everyone was on the same wavelength'. A good morning's work.

Tony