Boiled up a pound of mixed dried fruit and a few quartered glacé cherries in half a pint of cider, tea spoon of mixed spice, 4 oz margarine and 3 oz of brown splenda (sugar) for a Worcester Cider Fruit cake - then left it on the stove with the lid on to soak up all of the goodness until I got back :-)
Had a couple of boiled eggs and toast then milled around the house for a while.......
At 10:15 I set of (Far to early) to the Bath Road car-park for the start of the Club 50k Audax.
I made it less that 100 yards before falling off on a sheet of black ice, it was an interesting front wheel slid left, back wheel slid right, I put my foot down and it slid and I gracefully twisted to the ground slowly and completely unhurt :-) although when I stood up I realised I was standing on a sheet of ice and had real difficulty making my way down the rest of the hill. Once I made it to the main road I hopped on the bike and carried on full steam ahead to the start point :-)
I was the first one at the start, I paid my money (A massive £1.50) and signed in then waited in the cold for the start at 11...
Paul Winchcombe arrived and found the only piece of ice in the car-park a bit measuring about 6 inches wide and 2 foot long, nobody had noticed it until he threw himself to the ground roughly, he did to a very impressive commando roll and ended up standing up.
The Audax start had two Options....1 was down the main road, 2 was to go across country, as I was fully aware of how icy the side roads were we ALL opted for the main road start. I found myself (as usual) tanking along with the lead group....well Richard and myself took turns towing Graham plus 1 along :-)
As we turned of the B4069 to head cross country to Dauntsey and Brinkworth it was a pleasant surprise to find the roads were clear of ice and we maintained a reasonable pace.
The checkpoint was at Brinkworth Village Hall a mere 11 n half miles into the ride, where we had a nice warm cuppa and a slice of cake (Worth more than the £1.50 the event cost). We arrived at the Hall only shortly after Eric and helped him set the tables/chairs up whilst we waited for the urn to boil :-) The four of us had nearly finished before the first people turned up! Then we were off again swapping the un-named for Paul W.
As we set off Richard realised he had left his cycle hat at the checkpoint and turned around to collect it, as he is a racing whippet it didn't take long for him to catch back up to us....
As we turned of the B4042 back on to unclassified roads we started to come across patches of frozen stuff, but all of it was very visible (White) and didn't cause to much concern (Just slowed us down a bit)
When we got to Malmesbury the route had us going down a very un-used and icy back road we went along the first stretch then opted to take a long cut down the main road instead of sliding down a steep hill.
As we pulled out of Malmesbury onto Common Road it all started to get very interesting, Graham, Richard and Myself all made it nicely around the corner, Paul went around the corner but his bike went straight on, both tyres just slid out on the black ice, Richard looked around to see what had happened then his front wheel slid out and he went down.....
We should have stopped and turned around at that point!
We didn't!
We came across two cars embedded into each other on a corner, again the road was sheet ice, we stopped and called up a few fellow riders to warn them of the road... But we carried on....
A little further along the road Paul twitched in front of me and I went down, the front slid left the back slid right and I fell like a sack of spuds, winding myself.
When we got to the A429 we all agreed to abandon the lightly used roads, we headed straight down the A429 over the Motorway and cut across on the B4122 to re-join the route at Sutton Benger.
We ended up at the designated end point at Morrisons car park having done the 50K, but swapping icy roads for some major roads. The risk of injury was less mixing with the cars rather than the ice!
The Garmin had my entire ride including the journey to and from as 37.57 miles in 2 hours 26 minutes with an average speed of 15.4 mph, route here...
Photo of Graham, Richard and Paul at the end...(Nobody offered to take a picture of me...so you will just have to believe I was there.....)
When I got back home I showered and changed then mixed 9 oz of self raising flower and 2 eggs into the cake mix and shoved it into the oven at 180 for 1 hour 15, assisted daughter with her A'level work and spent the rest of the afternoon writing this blog!
2 comments:
Got an "Ok" back from David following my warning call. I hope they got on ok.
If today was not supposed to be a race, how come we were first to the cakes and to finish? I did enjoy it though, inspite of the tumbles.
I managed major slippage in the garden and seem to have bruised something. Both feet right out in front of me and wallop I fit the ground. Hopefully a good nights rest will have been fit and able again - either that or a cripple.
Took you an afternoon to write this blog?
ha ha - only joking!
Jealous of your rides :(
Post a Comment