A chilly gathering, mildly moist to start with. Tim was in full PE teacher mode allocating riders into the fast group, most of us lurking at the back with sloped shoulders trying not to be picked by ‘Sir’.
Tim managed to not pick himself and we Classico types followed him left towards Henley. A gap rapidly appeared with Steve W blasting ahead on his battery assisted Derny Bike. After descending into Mill End the audible whoosh of Tim’s rear tyre letting go allowed us to regroup.
Tube duly reinflated Tim discovered that his tyre had a hernia in the sidewall requiring reinforcement. A gel was quickly drained (orange, not bad actually) and the package used to repair the sidewall. Re-inflation number two found us ready to go, at which point Graeme B decided to notice that he too had a punctured rear. Inflation number three found us ready to go yet again. Plans were made to lose a few minutes from the route to allow for coffee back at HQ.
Fast Leopards - a refreshment break (diesel stop) before Simon towed everyone home!
Battery power towed us up through Stoke Row towards Nettlebed where the Keirin pace began to cause a few of us to suffer with the pace. Our punctured pair Tim and Graeme weren’t for being late and headed on a direct trajectory for coffee. The rest of us ‘powered’ up to Christmas Common a varying pace. The ride leaders’ curry on Friday night may have been the cause of Rob B being off the pace. It turns out he was efficiently storing gravitational potential energy for his blistering descent into Dibley Village, almost catching up with the Derny bike.
We all arrived back at HQ nearer midday than 11, thankfully coffee and bacon baps were still plentiful. Great route and I’m sure the bit we didn’t do was great as well.