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Monday, 21 December 2015

Shortest day cycle

Various medical matters stopped us from an earlier start on a day when we knew daylight would be at a premium. At various stages we had 7, 8 and even, briefly, 9 Freewheelers on parade today.

Les rolled up, nominally in shorts, but with very little bare leg showing due to the huge black knee braces he was wearing, but he complained about what he regarded as cold weather and briefly threatened to go straight back home. The rest of us thought the temperature was fine for cycling, albeit it was cooler than it had been for a few days.

Keith then appeared - all dressed up in standard hi-viz yellow, but no bike! Apparently, he had broken his chain on the way down, so the rest of us - Messrs Dickens, Sharp, Meaden, Tyrie, McWhinnie and Stewart left one Gray behind but were joined by another, somewhat reluctant, Gray.

The plan was to keep it short and end up back at Buchanan's for our scone stop, so we took off east along the Way and entered Crathes estate at the West Gate, with an initial view of heading roughly towards Drum. As we climbed the hill, however, John McW suggested a modification to the plan, by turning right at the top of the hill and doing a little bit of offroading down to the Milton entrance.

When we got to the new Stewart Milne houses we headed north again and went up past where they're building the new crematorium - mawkish comments about reserving spaces - and on up the steepish hill on the eastern end of the Crathes estate,. There were a few moans and groans - mostly from me - when we eventually got to the top, where, surprise, surprise, we were joined by Keith Gray, who had had his chain fixed in record time by Banchory Cycles and had managed to track us down.

By now, the sun was breaking through and when we got back to Buchanan's there was barely a cloud in the sky. The scones were reported as a definite 4 out of 5, but there were only 2 takers - the rest of us opting for mini mince pies, raspberry shortcake and even a couple of soups.

When we left, we bumped in to Rufus - sans bicyclette - who was roped in to taking the team photo:

l-r: Keith Gray, Jeb Tyrie, John McWhinnie, Les Gray, Ian Stewart, Ian Sharp, Jeff Dickens & John Meaden
The stats were a very modest 22 kms with 207 metres of climbing - https://www.strava.com/activities/453968589

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