3 random blokes and a coffee morning

Saturday dawned and we were all eager to be off to Hebden Bridge - yes the one near Burnley, not Ripon!

The bribe of cakes was deliberate. It was only when it was too late, and people had given their word they would be there, did they realise where we were headed! However, I was pleasantly surprised to get a turnout of 12 including me.

Along with the old faithfuls (Dave, Nic, Kevin, Anne Marie, Ed and Mike), were James and Barbara and 3 random blokes who lived in the area - obviously just waiting for the SOC to come to town.

We had a shaky start having to repair Ed's puncture - only just discovered from Kevin's ride 2 weeks earlier - don't ask Ed about maintenance!

Being the confident leader I am I allowed one of the random blokes to hijack my ride from the beginning. Instead of taking a steep road climb up to Heptonstall we opted for a more gentle off road route - that was all well and good until we got to the end of his leading and he expected me to take over - only it wasn't on the route. But using my built-in GPS (2nd nature to all women) it wasn't long before I got us back on track (!!!!)

As usual Ed was spurting off ahead - he claimed to be on good form as he'd only had one bottle of fizzy pop the night before instead of the usual 10 pints and a curry. I have to admit I was rather pleased about the hijack - we missed all the bog trotting that I found when I reckied the route - if I wasn't so confident about my navigational skills you could be fooled into thinking I had got it wrong somewhere.

After snorkelling through a few puddles we hit the road for a 5 mile blast - the girls decided it was a race so it was - all well and good till a random bloke appeared from nowhere! Also laid on especially for Nic was a wind farm sighting at Coal Clough.

Dropping down to Worsthorne we had a chance to hit the pub - did we take it? No! Ed had spotted a better prospect in the form of the church coffee morning - he fancied his chances with some older ladies and was disappointed at me turning up with none home made cakes. So off we trotted into the church. 10 cups of coffee for the bargain price of £5.00 - not only that - homemade fairy cakes with cream and biscuits. There's also a bar upstairs but we couldn't wait till it opened. The vicar also blew my cover - I had claimed the rest of the ride was gently undulating mainly to convince Dave he could manage it all in his big ring - something mechanical apparently - I just thought he was in training to get a single speed. But the vicar told it different - something about long drags uphill into a head wind and running out of track - oops!

By then it was too late and we were committed to our medium ride. It wasn't that bad - Dave only snapped his chain once - bit too much strain - and Kevin had a puncture.

The rest of the route was good off road tracks, a bit of mud and a fast spin back to Hebden Bridge. The day was crash free although Mike tried to blot the copy book with some negative steering on the road and nearly took out the back of a Fiesta. This was shortly after Kevin took advantage of a run out realising he couldn't make a corner without brakes.

Then it was back to the cafe‚ where Ed regaled us with stories of his firework dealing and disrupting Songs of Praise - don't ask!

Thanks to all that came along.

Top tip for the day - make sure all the carrots are liquidised before serving.

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	Swaledale Outdoor Club

3 random blokes and a coffee morning

Judith Wox