The Fellowship of the Chain Ring

So on my return to the UK earlier this week, I found myself immediately subject to the Spanish Inquisition who as we all know, rely on fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the agony of Streatley Hill. The role of Tomás de Torquemada fell to Harley who had been briefed to lead me up every hill in West Berkshire to see if I still could; after months of peddling along a nice flat Nile. The experience culminated in a ride up the aforementioned Streatley Hill, a long 16% climb, much favoured as a ‘King of the Mountain’ stage in the Tour of Britain.

Detailed Planning at the Bell

The look of a man 'in the right'

I passed and this trial by ‘heavy breathing’ and peddled onto meet the others for a detailed planning session in The Bell at Aldworth. Chief amongst the many issues we had to consider was how to deal with Graham’s day three problem. It has become something of a tradition that after three days of having to deal with the vagaries of the rest of us on these trips, Graham explodes, shouts a few well- chosen obscenities and as a general rule, cycles off into the middle distance. My colleagues were reminded of this the previous weekend when somewhere near Bere Regis, after 110 miles in the saddle, they made the mistake of choosing to challenge Graham’s confident assertion that there was a farm shop advertising Dorset Cream Teas just round the corner. Thankfully they made the wise choice of turning round and going off after him. Graham was of course irritatingly correct and they spent the next couple of hours sitting on a terrace in the warm, late afternoon sunshine consuming Cornish pasties, massive sandwiches, cream, jam, scones and endless pots of tea; makes my favourite Khartoum Tea Lady seem somewhat inadequate…

So off tomorrow, all the bikes are dismantled and packed up, transport booked, packs of nutrition bars and carbohydrate gels sent to each of the hotels for the following day’s ride. All set and the weather reports suggest it’s not going to be too grilling in Spain, after all.

Keep you posted!