Saturday in Essex with Ken
Posted on Monday 4 June 2007 by Ken Peters
It’s Saturday and we have another of the occasional rides that happen on Saturday. Once again we have a good turnout, this time there are eight at Liverpool Street and more to come who are making their own way to the start. At Kelvedon we were joined by Kelvin Dane who had made his way from Romford and Roy Watson who had driven up from Sutton Valence but unfortunately Anne, his wife, was not feeling up to joining us on the road.
Most of the morning went well until a minor navigational issue meant that we ended up in Witham instead of further north and that coincided with the leader having a double puncture. I say a double puncture but that was not immediately apparent. Eventually we regained the route which was helped by the fact that the ride recce had started from Witham due to train problems.
Back to the punctures, of which I have more than my fair share but had been absent from my cycling recently, I think it was a new road surface that finally did for me but it was not immediately apparent that there was both a front and rear puncture and even then when that had become apparent as we were leaving Witham I was reluctant to stop again having taken rather too long to do the first one. I will remember in future to always check both tyres.Eventually we got to Little Waltham and could no longer nurse the flat any longer so I sent the rest of the group ahead while I did the second repair only to find that one of my three spare tubes had been badly repaired so was not functional. It’s a good job I always carry plenty of spares with me.
In the mean time I had received a message from the Hon Secretary and assured him that the rest of the group were approaching the designated lunch halt at The Alma, Chelmsford. Eventually I arrived to find that the rest of the group had not arrived much before me as they had some issues navigating the traffic system in Chelmsford. In addition to Anne Watson we also had Camille Savory who had ridden with Nick from Epping in a fixed convoy.
Lunch was excellent and after a lengthy halt we were just about to start riding again when Kelvin noticed that he had a spoke problem. Not exactly a problem he had lost a spoke and as his bike has modern wheels with many fewer spokes he reluctantly abandoned as he could not make the wheel rideable.
The afternoon session went well until close to Willingale the majority of the riders managed to lose Helen and myself but that was not apparent until we arrived at Blackmore. Eventually they turned up but about twenty five minutes later but somewhere along the way they managed to lose Leigh who has assured me that she holds no grudges.
Suitably refreshed, after the tea stop, we than had an uneventful ride to return from Shenfield. Overall we covered about 90K instead of the expected 78K but that was down to my morning navigational failings.
Riders
Leigh Andrews, Angela Dale, Helen Dutton, Geraldine Nogami and
Camille Savory.
Nick Bloom, Kelvin Dane, Martin Freeman, Andrew Neal, Nick Sweeney and Roy Watson.
Map of the (planned) route here.