Good grief. My first FNRttC in about three years.
No excuses, simply got out of the habit / life behaviours changed during covid.
I no longer work in the office, so my bike fitness is down the pan, and if I'm honest I was slightly worried that a whole FNRttC ride would be too much / too far for me. There's nothing like having the 'obvious but you'd rather not be made embarrasingly aware of it' fact happening so obviously that you have to acknowledge it, and that happening in a crowd.
It was therefore with a little trepidation that I rocked up at the Southbank. Would I recognise anyone ? Would anyone recognise me ?
I needn't have worried - many familiar faces and it felt like I hadn't been away.
Great route, lots of (mostly) smooth tarmac and on many roads I'd never seen before. Getting our westing straight from Turners Hill was inspired - lots of quiet, only slightly descending roads kept the speed up.
I was waymarking at the crossing of the Nutfield Road just beyond where the two derailleur failures happened. I've had longer waymarking duties, but probably none as cold as that one. I was wearing a Fridays summer s/s, a yacf winterweight l/s and my Fridays soft shell on top. It wasn't enough. RideWithGPS has me there for 37 minutes. It felt a lot longer than that. When I was released I tore off to warm up but when I got to the right turn onto Prince of Wales Road I took pity on the waymarker there (Yorkshire accent (?) wearing red) and stopped to chat for 20 minutes. I headed back to check on progress and was given the green light by Greg for both of us to head to the scout hut. Phew.
What would we do without the Burstow Scouts I ask you.
By the time we left there the sky was lightening and the rest of the ride was superb.
Turners Hill was shorter than I remembered. (How does that work ? It's normally the other way round. Was it being daylight ?)
Route from there was ace. And having driven past the signs for the Wings Air Museum for 20 years and never having quite got round to going, it was fun to take that route and see that it does indeed exist.
Whoever the nutter from Putney in shorts (and no gloves) and on a Brompton was, you're a strong rider. We had great fun tearing along those lanes, just slight downhill - glorious.
Steyning was picture perfect, filmset-like. (Though I did spot the obligatory SUV driver collecting his daily newspaper. A fine use of resource if ever there was one. (And no, I didn't catch which newspaper, though I think we can likely rule out its being The Grauniad.))
Breakfast was, as Stu said, quite exceptional. Though personally, I don't see the point of a baked bean ramekin. The sausage was exactly the sort of thing I always wanted The Madeira to serve (but, alas - many of you know the story of that one).
Sat with the Putney Bromptoneer, Ransos, the purple yacf top wearer and the American chap with the pigtail and A N Other (but he was one away from me to the right and for the life of me can't remember who it was) and the yarns rattled out. (I can't remember when I was last on a ride with Ransos.) Again, it felt like I'd never been away.
As the crowd thinned there was just Sonia, Greg, Shadow and Ransos left. Beers started happening. (Bongo beer though ? WTF ?)
And then, before we knew it it was 11am and we all had places to be, so scattered to the four winds, Greg, Sonia and Ransos to the station (Southwick or Shoreham ?), Shadow to the West and me to the East to my brother's place in Brighton, and then on to the train home. Back home by about 4pm, 5 mins before Mrs hatler stepped through the door after her New Malden Velo ride to Windsor and back. Similarish distances but I'd been out of the house about four times longer !
I will be back.
