Long Ride 6th August 2017 – Bottoms Up!

Slithering into HQ at a finely-judged 9 am, we were pleased to find both Robin and Trevor sufficiently recovered from their LEL adventures to be on the start line for the long ride, together with Ian, Phils 1 and 4, Ben, Amanda and Raymond. So it was ten for the Lizard, with the suggestion of Robin that we might see a bit of Falmouth Week on the way back.

Ian led us down? to Gweek by an interesting route – clearly on gears today. One of the One and All groups was mustering at the normal mustering point, and also heading for the Lizard. We followed them onto Gweek Drive and there was a bit of mingling as our climbers and theirs broke for the last slope. Sorting ourselves out on opposite sides of the road at the war memorial we bid our farewells as we took the low road to Trelowarren and they took the high road and were probably there (but not in Scotland) before us.

We followed the usual route down to Lizard village, though the strong cross wind (or perhaps the after effects of Martyn’s carnival waddle) meant that the tandem didn’t provide full loco service to the train across the downs this time. The Regent Café thankfully doesn’t do “summer prices” and we were quickly and economically served with coffees and breakfasts. Trevor did his best to put us off ours with a tasteful photo of the effects of 400 odd miles in the saddle, and Ben, having called for his forgotten beans, didn’t quite do justice to a full veggie, but we were all well fuelled for the return leg.

I’m not sure where we went exactly on the way back but it involved a lot of hills – and we did get a couple of good if distant views of the working boats in Falmouth Bay. Raymond’s free hub had been grouching all day and he’d been threatening to take a file to it, but it spared him the trouble by breaking up altogether on the hill out of St Anthony. Ben’s hand on the back got him up to a turn back to St Keverne, and we hope he scooted and coasted his way home OK.

Now down to nine, we continued back to Gweek on the coast road, where Phil 1 and Amanda left the rest of us at the Black Swan to rehydrate and debrief. Robin perhaps unwisely warned the pub of Wednesday’s intended visitation. We had an increasingly merry discussion on the strategies of long events and the merits of different saddle, shorts and embrocation combinations, physios, massages and wobble cushions, until it was time for us to tackle Four Mile Hill (it isn’t really) and home.

About 64 miles for us.  Margaret

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.