Cheers for sorting the ride Colin, really nice route
. Sorry i couldn't make the full 100 mile.
Definitely would do again, thanks for organising @ColinJ
Another blinder @ColinJ
Thanks once again for doing the work organising it for us.
Thanks to Colin and everyone else for their company. Can't believe we dodged EVERY shower.
The roads in Garforth at the end were swimming.
For me it was a good new 100 with new people, and a much better day than forecast for us missing all those showers (somehow). I was a bit hungry when a got back but a Parmo Hot Shot fixed that.
Really enjoyable day out on the bike and great company. Nice to meet up again with old friends and new after so long with the COVID restrictions. We were so lucky to dodge the rain.
Thanks to Colin for all his work in organising and planning such a pleasant and quiet route.
It’s been so long since my last CC group ride and a great one to restart with - a fantastic route by @ColinJ (or ColinP as he is now known!)
Thanks to Colin for organising and everyone else for good company that helped the miles pass so quickly. Special thanks to @si_c for his help with my thorny puncture which scuppered our cunning plan to be first at the cafe stop, eventually rolling in last 😂
Congratulations to those who have done their first century today too. 👍🏻 Awesome riding and one to remember.
We were so lucky with the weather too. We dodged some really heavy showers
Thanks to all of you for turning out. I don't mind making the effort to organise rides when there is such a good response.
Yes, we were
VERY lucky with the weather!
@Littgull and I saw some depressingly wet and dreary conditions from our train on the way over from Todmorden but it was dry in Garforth when we got there. Everyone who was supposed to be there was; no last minute dropouts.
It was overcast when we set off but somewhere on the way to our lunch stop we passed through an area that had obviously had a very heavy downpour.
I was on my singlespeed bike. It has been making an irritating noise recently and that noise progressively got worse during the ride. Not only did it annoy me, it also worried me in case something suddenly failed. Current suspects are the bottom bracket and the chainring. I'll investigate tomorrow after a lazy day recuperating from my exertions.
There is one small hill on the first part of the ride which I remember battling my way up on the ride in 2019. This time I was fighting my overgeared bike again and had just got to the worst bit when... things got easier!
@neil_merseyside had ridden up alongside me and was giving me a gentle push. It is amazing how much difference a little bit of help makes when you are at your limit! I would probably just have made it without the help but it would have really tired my leg muscles. Thanks Neil - it was nice to meet you, and I hope you can make it to some more of our rides in the future!
@Buck had what I think was the only problem of the day, a puncture just before that stop at Cawood Caravan Park.
@si_c stayed with him to supervise the repair and the rest of carried on to the caravan park. It was dry so we all sat outside for a relaxing break. I took my one photo of the day. The picture is slightly blurred; I may have focussed the camera on something in the background by mistake. I'll post it anyway so you can see who did the ride. (Pity about intrusive Calor Gas tank!
)
Left to right: Carrie (my pal), Al (spouse of Julia),
@colly,
@Domus,
@Julia9054,
@Soltydog,
@Buck,
@Slioch,
@neil_merseyside,
@Littgull,
@si_c, Kevin (my pal, who is 72 and breezed the ride!)
Eventually, we got back on our bikes and continued the ride. For the second time I misunderstood my own route at a particular T-junction. (I did it in 2019 too...) I had marked the junction with an overshoot after a left turn. It was supposed to remind me to tell everyone that that was where they could take the shortcut to do a metric century instead of an imperial one.
@Soltydog has another long ride to do today, so he didn't want to push his luck. I went back to the junction to say goodbye!
As we continued, the sun appeared! We had a few more short impromptu stops and eventually people were taking off surplus kit. I had to take my jersey off and make do with my thin base layer under my gilet.
We started to split into faster and slower groups on the run back to Garforth. We made sure that each group had at least one person with the route on a GPS device.
I rode for an hour or so with
@Julia9054. She thanked me for waiting for her, but in fact she was riding at my speed anyway - I couldn't have sustained much more of an effort! She surpassed her longest previous ride at some point, and that was way before Garforth so she must have done at least 10-20% further than ever before - a very good effort!
I was starting to get tired and sore so I didn't want to stop again and rode past a big group that were waiting. I felt that it had been slightly rude of me but I was watching the time and knew that I had to keep riding to catch the planned train at Garforth. If I missed that I faced an hour's delay OR a ride into Leeds, neither of which appealed to me.
Miscellaneous riders came up to me just before Fairburn, including my pal Carrie who was chatting to another very fit woman who she appeared to have encountered on the road. I didn't see Carrie again so I am hoping that she didn't get distracted by the chat and miss the turn at Fairburn! I know that she can find her way using Google Maps on her phone if necessary so one way or another she should have been okay.
A small group of us formed on the road between Fairburn and Garforth. We once again encountered signs of torrential rain which we had completely avoided!
@Littgull and I only had about 5 minutes to spare at Garforth before our train arrived, so we didn't get the chance to say goodbye to most of the other riders - sorry!
As I mentioned out on the road, I am thinking of running the Humber Bridge ride again, maybe on July 31st? If you are interested then watch out for a new thread appearing soon! (I need to make sure that my singlespeed bike is sorted out before then though!)
PS
@Buck... I really like the composition of your 'line of riders' photo! I have cropped and resized it to the one below. I can't make my mind up whether I prefer the original with the big sky and tree, or this 'widescreen' version.
