Club ride yesterday, bright clear day, Tour de Loch Ken which gives a
nice 25 mile circuit (or 50 miles if I ride from home, which, as I was
still recovering from a cold, I didn't). Target of the ride, a nice wee
cafe or Tea Shoppe in New Galloway, one of the relatively few cafes
around here that's open on Sundays through the winter, an consequently
something of a favourite of ours.
Tours de Loch Ken are traditionally wet. We have at least one club member
who refuses to do any more of them, because she's so used to getting
rained on. But she was away in Fort William for National Squad coaching,
so we rode up to New Galloway with a bitterly cold north wind in our
faces, lured on by visions of CAKE.
Alas, it was not to be; for Lo, there was No Room in the Inn, it being
entirely occupied by Solway Cycling Club over from Cumbria for the
weekend.
I was impressed not only that they could get something between
twenty-five and thirty riders out for a weekend jaunt, but that they
were clearly such a mixed bunch. The bikes in the yard ranged from a
Longstaff and a Hewitt to a couple of Halfords mountain bikes, and the
(very friendly) horde in the cafe ranged from youngsters to veterans.
That's what I aspire to for our club - a friendly, inclusive bunch of
people who enjoy cycling, and enjoy cycling together.
So, being usurped in the cafe, and not being warned in a dream but eager
to stay on the wooded side of the loch out of the wind, we turned about
and did not go back by another way. Which was just as well because,
returning as we'd come, we ran into Big Dougie who hadn't made it to the
start in time but had set out afterwards. With the wind at our backs we
made better speed on the way back, a very pleasant ride.
A lot of other cyclists out on the roads, too. We say half a dozen other
small groups, and from Laurieston to Glenlochar there was a chap in an
orange jacket up ahead of us whom I thought we'd easily catch... but we
didn't, so he was no slouch.
--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
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