Written by Andy King.
After last week’s solo ride it was great to be joined by Andrea, Sue and Jon. After a quick trip back to my house to take on and dispose of water, we left the end of Parklands at just after 9:00 a.m. for what turned out to be an eventful ride.
Perfect for riding
We’re all getting used to the idea of zone 2 riding and the pace was nice and steady as we headed out in an westerly direction until we got to Stanford on Avon. The weather was perfect for riding; never cold but not uncomfortably hot. As Jon commented: “Perfect”.
At West Haddon we stopped briefly to discuss whether we wanted to have a coffee stop but we unanimously agreed to keep riding and get home in good time.
Tangle
Not stopping then turned out to have been a good decision when, a few minutes later as we were dropping down a little hill, Jon and Sue whilst chatting, touched bar ends and as they described after, didn’t concern them, and it seemed as though they were going to just separate, however, they didn’t, which resulted in them both falling and ending up in a bit of a tangle.
Unfortunately Sue came off worst in the fall but was quickly back on her feet and riding, once her steering and brakes had been sorted. Jon’s ninja training helped him escape with very little obvious damage to himself but his bike took a little bit of a knock but again nothing that couldn’t be sorted by the side of the road.
After a few steady miles we soon settled back into a zone 2 pace, abiet both Jon and Sue a little battered, but that didn’t stop the ride and we consumed the miles as originally planned and we all got home safely although I know from experience that there’ll be some sore limbs for the next few days.
Next week
I’m hoping that next week’s ride will be back to its steady best and less ‘exciting’. It’ll probably be back to Wednesday unless there’s a strong desire to make it on Tuesday. I’ll post a route later in the week.
Photos, courtesy of Andrea and Sue. Thank you both.
My first of Andy’s Zone 2 rides, even with the topple, it was a superb ride and manageable pace, thank you Andy.