A number of SNCC riders chose to ride the Bedford Road CC Reliability Ride on Sunday 2nd February, instead of the club run.  See how they got on:

Sunday saw the first of two reliability rides organised by BRCC.  A few of us from St Neots CC chose to take up the challenge, setting off from Cardington at 9am for what promised to be a dry, warm, but all too familiar windy, 60 miles around the Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire countryside.

Heading off towards Moggerhanger, Mark, Terry, David, Steve, Dan and I came across Adrian and Richard. Adrian made a quick u-turn to join our group whilst Richard carried on by himself.  Dan and a stray, whom I’ll call Tony for the purposes of this report, also joined us soon after.  With the first 20 miles quickly covered, and with just the faintest sprinkle of rain on the way, we were making good progress.  

We were now in familiar territory, passing through Little Staughton (downhill for a change!) and picking up the B660 just south of Kimbolton, when a cry of "mechanical" was heard.  Luckily a quick adjustment to the front mech cable solved the shifting problem and we all continued on our way.   

As we passed through Yelden, across the A6 and onto Wymington, Adrian and Richard decided to push the pace a little and we were all too happy to let them go as by now the wind was causing some issues on the southward leg of the loop. So onwards to Radwell where we arrived to find the road was closed due to flooding.  Luckily there’s a raised walkway which some of us (the sensible ones) chose to walk, while others decided it would be fun to ride the 3 foot wide path for the ¼ mile.  Amazingly this passed without incident (I once got my front wheel stuck in the groove on that walkway and nearly came crashing down from the raised walkway to the flooded road below - traet it with care! -Ed)!

Now at the 50 mile mark, we turned left to climb the notorious hill into Ravensden which surprisingly was dispatched without any problems, leaving us with just 10 miles to ride through Wilden, Great Barford and finally back to Cardington.  All was going well until we turned right at Great Barford only to be met by a brutal wind, slowing us all and making it a real slog back to the clubhouse for a well earned mug of soup!

Warmer weather and a bit of sunshine made this a great morning’s ride and, with an average of close to 17mph, we are all looking forward to round 2 in a couple of weeks.

Ian