I was running a little late, when I became stuck behind a school minibus and another car following a lone cyclist. Fair enough, the road from Waverton to Aldford has a number of curves, which can make overtaking a risk. When the smartly attired rider waved us through, it happened to be Ivan! He joined us for coffee at Maggie’s, before doing his own route back. It was great to see his recovery going so well. At Maggie’s it was also a pleasant surprise to meet up with Elwyn and Fiona. Ken had made the effort but had commitments that prevented him joining one of our rides. Jim and Trevor had ridden out, but it was just Matt, Ray, Andy and myself who made up the day’s moderate group participants.
Wet weather was forecast for some time around three o’clock, so my plan was for a fair mileage before lunch, followed by a direct return route, hopefully beating the rain. I booked The Two Doves for 12.45 and that is exactly the time we arrived. We had started out through Farndon, and the high water at the Dee bridge was notable considering that the weather had been quite dry recently. It was hard to understand how planning permission had been granted for the impressive new house against the cliffs; did they use cars or canoes to get out when the river flooded? Did Amazon use drones to make deliveries? We had a largely quiet lanes route to Tilston, Duckington and Ashton Cross before heading south west to Malpas via Hampton Heath. We were soon on backwaters again taking in Oldcastle Heath, Threapwood and Mulsford before crossing the A525 at Holly Bush and reaching Overton by way of Cloy and then the B5069. With two strong riders and Ever Ready Ray, I was sometimes in the position of the Jim Dale model of leading from the back. This didn’t always work effectively, with Matt’s experience occasionally presuming that the route in my head was logical. Ray, of course, was often cruising ahead like an unaware geriatric driving a 1952 Lanchester 14. This had been exemplified at Sarn Bridge where I surprised the troops by turning right from behind them. Andy always waits supportively for anyone lagging, but this is partly offset by him regularly pointing out that the leader doesn’t appear to know his derriere from his elbow. Ray Hardman leading would have just turned off and left them to it. If we were a formal CTC group, we could call a meeting and condemn the behaviour, waste my time writing up minutes, send copies to the officers on the local board, and ban Ray until he fitted a mud flap. As it is, we are a very relaxed, tolerant independent club, and we prefer riding and jesting to extra bureaucracy and the imposition of strict rules.
The staff at The Two Doves are very pleasant and the food spot on. Their Full English is always an essential on Andy’s athlete’s diet sheet. Conversation was lively, and a bit loud to be honest, but writing this a few days on, I can’t remember the topics discussed! Life is like that at my age, it just washes over you like water over marble, gradually wearing you down and nothing sinking in.
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| Photo by CER |
The ride back was always intended to be shortish, but perhaps we should have reviewed it over lunch, because with the wind behind us we returned to Holt via Bangor- on-Dee in just over forty minutes, including Matt’s cleverly taken photographs at the bridge where a visiting couple volunteered to do the deed last time. At Holt, Andy and Matt set off for home, hopefully missing any rain. Ray and I were surprised to see Alan and Steve Tan cycling to the car park, but that is another story! We had covered about 44 very enjoyable, dry miles. Matt and Andy had ridden more miles and a lot more respectively.
DH
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