Ken’s Big Birthday Ride
Posted on Monday 2 July 2007 by Ken Peters
Saturday 30th June
Ken’s Big Birthday Ride
In my book big birthday’s are ones that end in 0 but some poetic licence must be allowed for when listing rides so all I can say is that it was certainly not one of those birthdays. What else is there to fill in as background apart from the fact that the weather has been bad and the forecast was not showing any signs of major improvement.
I almost forgot. Regular readers of this blog know I always write lengthy reports so here goes with a brief one for a change.
Only 3 on the ride; Inez, John and myself.
A great lunch at The Hare and Hounds Old Warden
Little rain fell on us despite the dire forecast.
We covered just over 96km on the ride.
If you were not there you missed a great day with good company and a fine ride.
OK, I can’t do these brief reports so here we go with my usual wordy recollection.
It was a surprise to me that I bumped into Inez at the top end of Pentonville Road as she is well know as a rider who doesn’t do rain. O.K. she is not the only one and it is probably better to identify those people who are more likely to turn out when the forecast is poor especially of they are not scheduled to lead. Well, eventually there were three of us at the designated meeting point which was more than I had expected given the forecast and also I had a secret desire to cancel the ride as the day before I had been sniffling and definitely felt as if a cold was coming on and, also, I had a disturbed night.
Apart from passing through a heavy shower at Luton the train trip to the start at Flitwick passed unremarkably but there was enough rain falling to required the donning of rain wear before we started. That situation continued for the first thirty minutes or so of the ride until we had got to Houghton Conquest. After that the weather stayed remarkably dry and by the time we approached Old Warden for the first time we had all slipped out of waterproofs. After Southill there is one of my favourite pieces of road, the B568, that leads towards Sandy and Biggleswade, as it is dead flat and when ridden with the wind great speeds are achievable. Today was one of those days but there is usually a sting in the tail as you eventually have to turn off such flat and straight routes and face the wind. Heading as we were today to Old Warden this was definitely the case and the 40+Kph speeds achieved dropped remarkably once we turned off at Hatch. Fortunately that point is only about five kilometres from Old Warden.
Lunch was splendid as it always is at the Hare and Hounds and we had a leisurely break as with only three of us and and, initially, an empty pub service was excellent. Eventually we had to leave and begin the afternoon swing round Bedford before completing the ride. While we were at lunch the roads had continued to improve and showed distinct signs of drying out.
The afternoon section of the ride is pretty good as soon after we had started again we got to Cardington and the wonderful sight of the giant airship hangers which never fail to amaze me. From there, apart from a brief stretch on the A603, the roads were very quiet and, being Bedfordshire, pretty flat until approaching Thurleigh when the terrain rolls a little more. Tea was taken at Harrold-Odell Country Park which has a lovely cafe with the CTCers favourite a great selection of cakes. From there it was only then less than fifteen kilometres back to Bedford and the end of the ride.
FInally, despite the damp conditions the day was only marred by a single occurrence of the dreaded black-squishy-disease that only made itself apparent as we got off at KX Thameslink which meant John was delayed in returning to his south London homeland by the need to affect a repair.
RIDERS
Leader – Ken Peters
Inez Thorn and John Snuggs
Ken Peters
July 1st 2007