Day 74 (Saturday) - Mic, Marian & Nathan

We had an early rise in preparation for Mic, Marian and Nathan, I also wanted to inspect the back wheel on 'Diana'

My worse fears were born true I had broken a spoke on the cassette side which is why the wheel kicked out of true. I twisted the broken spoke around an adjoining spoke (So it wouldn't snag the chain or anything else important) and trued the wheel as best I could with a spoke missing! (If it wasn't for the planned ride I would not have taken the bike out!)

Photy of broken spoke

I will take the wheel out and get the spoke replaced and the wheel trued on Monday

Mic and Marian arrived in good time for the 10:30 start (About 9:50) - Nathan as expected didn't ;-)

We eventually set of at about 10:50


I did find it quit difficult to keep the pace down when I thought I had slowed down enough for Nathan to keep up, Nathan had the audacity to speed up and overtake! - It only happened the once!

Zoom in to see Nathan ;-)


Ahh here he is....


Joking aside I think Nathan did extremely well to keep with us for the ride, I know I couldn't have done anything like it On my 2nd Day, at that point I had only just been able to do 10 miles!

The first leg of the ride was 22 Miles, mainly A4 with a nice tail wind which made the hills quite nice to go up ;-)

When we turned the corner at Clatford we were smacked in the face with 15MPH head winds.

We arrived at the Pub at about 13:20 (A bit later than expected-but no real bother)

Nathan wisely decided to stop at this point - He did exceptionally well to get there ;-)

We left the pub at about 14:45 (I was very much anaesthetised by a couple of bottles of Green Goblin), We returned via Devizes, Bromham, Melksham, Lacock, and Chippenham Arriving back in Chippenham at 16:56 ish (The Cycle Comp had the entire journey at 48.7 Miles)

Not the Fastest round trip but a very good learning experience. It was nice to go out with friends and see the countryside ;-)

The trackme server did a good plot of the route :-)

Here's some more photies of the trip.

Mic giving a thumbs up


Marian n Mic pulling in to wait.....


Me ;-)


I will have to learn to pace myself with other people, I have my own speed that I am comfortable with, Unfortunately it is faster than anybody else ;-( However It was quite nice to pull up every 10 minutes or so and let them catch up. Today's ride is an experience we must do again - I think it is essential that we have to find a pace or a way of riding that does not let us split up or spread out, and NOT force people to go at a speed they are not comfortable at (either slow or fast)