November’s first ride saw us meet at Brampton Valley Cycles before heading out via Desborough and across to Sibbertoft via East Farndon – pretty much heading into the wind.
Rather than splitting into Training and Intermediate groups, we all rode together in a peloton consisting of Darren Gillings, Andrea Woollcott, Haythem Rashed, Scott Barber, Cyril Burgess, Ian Bird, Lucas Buksch, David Robinson, Sophie Griffin and Andy Parker.
Wind
A brief interlude for Lucas to mend a puncture in South Kilworth allowed the rest of us a short rest in some autumn sunshine before turning to get the benefit of a fairly stiff and persistent wind coming from the west as we dropped down through Stanford on Avon and headed up the climb to Cold Ashby. From there, the short ride across to the Old Vicarage at Naseby was pretty quick.
Wasps
On arrival though, Anne was not prepared for us but agreed we could come in “as long as you don’t make a mess!” as she had a large afternoon tea party booked. We were grateful to be let inside as the earlier sun had disappeared and the breeze picked up in the garden area. Not only that, but we seemed to be seated under a wasps nest as dozy wasps kept dropping onto us below. Not a great mix with the usual array of cakes we were anticipating.
What’s It
In an earlier stop, Andrea had gathered up something pretty unpleasant left by the human owner of a dog (can’t blame the dog!) on her shoe which had succeeded in embedding itself in her cleats and pedal. In order not to “make a mess” there was a quick clean up job required before entering the Old Vicarage.
The journey back was pretty swift as the wind picked up even more and I actually recorded a couple of PRs on Strava on roads ridden many times and clocked up a decent 50 miles or so.