Sunday 4th April, steady social ride.
Clear skies and a cool westerly breeze greeted the fourteen riders who turned up for the first ‘steady’ social ride after lockdown three – it was great to welcome a few new faces as well as catch up with some we hadn’t seen for a while.
Splitting into two groups, Andy King took some of the more experienced riders and Marcus Buksh followed on a few minutes behind with a second group. Starting off through Pytchley and Orlingbury, Keith Edwards was struggling with sore knees and decided to go his own way, the remainder of us continued through Little Harrowden to Mears Ashby, where we turned towards Holcot, then over the Pitsford Reservoir causeway and up towards Scaldwell.
Stopping for a quick drink, group two were surprised to find they were ahead of group one, which had gone slightly off-piste, taking in an extra loop around Sywell Reservoir en route.
The two groups split once more, climbing the hill to Lamport before taking the lovely twisty road through Draughton and back up to the airfield road. Now it was group one’s turn to go off course, skipping the rough Orton Road in favour of the direct route to Loddington. From there we took the opportunity to bag a couple more hills on the road to Cransley before dipping back towards Kettering.
All back safely to the bus stop by about 11am, having covered 30 miles at roughly 13.5mph.
Group 1: Andy King, Phil Scott, Michael and Andy Dobbs, James Belton and Roger Reed
Group 2: Marcus Buksh, Mark Brockway, Salvatore Seminerio, Steve Wong, Trevor Hall, Jake Bird, Gary Bridger and Keith Edwards
Due to the rising popularity of the steady rides we will be increasing to twice monthly, on the first and third Sunday – look out for details on the events page and don’t forget to register if you want to come along.