15th October 2026: Holt

 Today’s ride began in a strange way as most of the mods met outside Jim’s house in Guilden Sutton, I was running late so I parked in the village and caught them up later. We all headed to Hawarden to the cafe which was bristling with CER members. I’m not naming everyone as their respective tour guide will probably mention who was in attendance. Our posse consisted of Dave H, Jim,Trevor, George, Dave N , Mike Dodd and myself as nominated carer. I sometimes think I’m a cowboy wrangling this lot instead of cattle. I have the mods, making sure they have been the loo and picked everything up. Now I’ve got another wrangle trying to get certain members to stop gassing and get moving. I’m definitely not cut out for working in a care home.

The reason we met a Jim’s was due to everyone trying to get a loop in before the forecasted rain in the afternoon, which seemed to be the theme for the other groups. Once again I didn’t check the weather, as basically we live in England and it rains, but we did have a strong  headwind on the journey out so cycling along the river was a slog .

The route for us was heading to Holt for dinner via Buckley then up to Penyfordd , Hope over to Llay then Gresford then on to Holt for lunch .

This is where it got confusing as Maggies was busy, so we split into two groups. Myself Trevor, George all got seated in the café, but as normal the other suspects dithered and whatever else a bunch of doddering cyclists do and couldn’t make a decision, so they decided to eat at Cleopatras. Our little group ordered and chatted over the usual excellent fare which was served quickly and half decent as well, so we sent the CER four a photo and made a quick phone call to rub salt into their wounds, as they hadn’t even been served. So as they were stating it’s going to pour down or the way it was described to me Noah and his Ark would be required as we are going to have biblical rain and wind haha, which we didn’t as it was only a splattering of rain.

So the three of us had decided to take the longer route back to Guilden Sutton through Farndon over to Churton then headed to Coddington around the back lanes to Tattenhall. Then the usual route back to Waverton and Guilden Sutton where we encountered the biblical rain that we’d warned about. Yes, as you can guess, it wasn’t biblical and the wind had dropped much earlier. So to all the members who checked every weather app known to mankind and worried that they would be turned into soaking wet miserable cyclists, take heed, stop worrying. It’s England and it rains.

So, the three of us covered around 42 to 46 miles. The other four, well I don’t know and couldn’t care less to be honest for all the griping over the weather certain members kept telling me - Dave H you know who you are haha. Once again, all joking aside, today was another good CER day, laughing, moaning and whatever 7 cyclists do meandering around quiet country lanes talking nonsense but enjoying the moment.

KB