A surprisingly sunny Saturday Social

11 Saturday Social riders set off on a beautiful sunny morning, and just 7 returned. Read on to find out what happened!

A huge turn out awaited me when I arrived at Sutton Hall, the largest since records began, larger than any ride, ever, anywhere, until I realised that quite a number of them didn’t have bikes. We had chosen the same meeting time and location as a ramblers group. So just the 11 of us, which was quite a relief! The group consisted of Becky, Lisa, Griff, Mark, Simon, Simon, John, Bruce and Ricci on the tandem, new lady Yvette plus yours truly.

Off we set via Gawsworth, through the lanes to Redesmere for our photo stop. Griff had been looking forward to an ice cream, but to his disappointment the van wasn’t there! So we made do with a brief photo stop, marvelling at the glorious weather.

After Griff had done a full search and confirmed that the ice cream van definitely wasn’t there, we set off again, through Siddington, Hodgehill Lane, Messuage Lane and Marton Hall Lane. It was here that we lost our first 2 riders, Griff inconsolable at the lack of ice cream had talked his partner in crime Mark to take a sneaky left turn towards Marton. The reason for the diversion soon became apparent:

And so we were 9, off we went to North Rode and then through the off road section through the Manor. Bruce and Ricci almost took a wrong turn and when they realised their error, mastered both an emergency stop and a hill start with the tandem. Very impressive indeed.

As we got closer to home, there were snippets of conversation suggesting another mutiny was about to occur, and true enough, Simon and Simon sneaked off towards Sutton, not in search of food but in search of hills! They did an extra loop up to Clulow Cross and back while the remaining 7 enjoyed a nice hot coffee back at Sutton Hall. A very enjoyable ride indeed, and a special welcome to Yvette our new rider.

Next ride Saturday 22nd Feb.

Rachel