Tuesday 14th February 2017.
Alresford Groupetta ride to the Bat & Ball.
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| All pictures by kind permission of Cycmon. |
Comment by Cycmon:
My cycling at the moment is like one of my old school reports 'can do better'; 27 miles on Sunday 35 miles today. Bit of a difference from the 50-60 I was doing on most outings last year! Ah well at least I'm getting out on the bikes – today PinkPal, Gridironman and I rode to the first Headquarters of English Cricket - The Bat and Ball at Hambledon (well its actually about 3 miles out of the village).
Thursday 16th February 2017.The Groupetta ride to The Hampshire Bowman to join the HCMF.
Cycmon is beginning to write my blogs for me and supply some great pics of us riding. Here are his latest comments and pictures (Slightly edited):-
28 miles ridden today to the Thursday Fellowship pub meet at the Hampshire Bowman. I must be getting a bit fitter because on a few of the hills I was able to ride to the top first, get my camera out and take a few snaps (but only just!). There were some pretty tough hills today as you will see from the pictures of PinkPal and Gridironman just about keeping the bikes upright at the summit of one climb!
it was a much milder day but dull at first with the sun coming out nicely later.
I had planned a short but challenging route to the pub as you can see from the profile below on my map and data sheet.
A log fire greeted us at the pub along with a fair number of our fellowship. Cycmon was "in the chair|" celebrating his recent ? birthday. We had a pleasant surprise. Our recent supremo, Angela, was also there, by accident, having walked there with a group of ramblers.
We enjoyed a tasty variety of dishes, mine was ham, egg and chips. Ages since I'd had such nice ham. Definitely carved off the bone. Just as we were leaving, Paul arrived having ridden from Andover, 34 miles, well done.
It was only a modest distance home to Alresford so we added a small diversion to enjoy the views from the ridge near the Milbury's and then descended to Kilmeston by a different lane. A nice fast downhill to enjoy. We easily topped 31 mph.
It was so pleasant an afternoon that when I got home I washed the mud, accumulated over the last three rides, off the bike before taking my own shower.
Another very happy day with friends who are now getting back their fitness. Problem for me is are they going to get too fast for me?
Saturday 18th February 2017.Alresford Groupetta "Audax". 105 km.
We had a great day out enjoying the afternoon sunshine after a misty start. Lots of avian activity, apart from the ubiquitous rooks cawing and jackdaws clacking we heard many robins, blackbirds. thrushes, a skylark and many others unidentified.
Simon's comments:
Simon Turner
18 February at 19:37
With my current level of fitness (still much to improve) I thought today I'd manage 50 miles so the CTC Saturday ride at 33 miles and heading for my home town didn't appeal. So I suggested to Gridironman that we should ride to the Black Swan at Monxton to do a before and after photo as I had found a 1907 photo of this pub with a family of cyclists outside. We then decided to join Laa-Laa & The Flying Scot in Whitchurch so a mere 17 miles before we began. In short I rode 67 miles and Gridironman 66, unfortunately TFS's chain broke north of Andover near Stoke - as it happened by a pub doing afternoon tea's (I reckon he'd planned it!). Marvellous day still chilly but sun breaking through and towards dusk the sun was setting right over the crest of a hill we were descending almost completely blinding us with its intensity. Not so lucky with the camera today the morning mist did impact the first few photo's. TFS suggested that Gridironman at 83 this year was probably the boy in the original photo!!!
We had a really excellent day. The only downside was a rather substandard lunch at the Hawk Conservancy. they were very busy and their standards had slipped.
We did at least get a picture of the pub. Apologies for the sweat on the lens! (All pictures are Cycmon's. Thanks for letting me use them). After lunch we crossed the very busy A303 to get into Weyhill. A somewhat nervous transit. We got over the first half of the dual carriageway quite easily but had to wait ages for a gap big enough to scoot across the second half. It is a viable crossing but needs extreme care as much of the traffic is moving at 70+ mph. We found a nice route from Weyhill through Penton Mewsey and Little London. The daffodils at the entrance to Andover Cemetery were in full bloom, a lovely splash of gold in the sunshine!
We left TFS at The Oak to enjoy his tea while we rode on to Whitchurch. Laa-Laa returning with the car to pick him up while we helped ourselves to tea before completing our longest ride of the year.
Cycmon & I have agreed that as we did the same three rides and completed around 130 miles in the week that we should share the Ton Up Kid medal this week, ignoring any small differences in the mileage recorded.
Here are some more of Cycmon's pictures to enjoy.
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| What is this world if full of care if we don't have time to stand and stare! |
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