10 x 10

Another dry day - that's 4 in a row now - brought a very healthy attendance of 10 Freewheelers for what was the 10th outing on this year's database.

We had travelled east to Drum on Friday, and south still didn't seem like much of an option, so despite us all having viewed John Meaden's photograph of the floods on the way to Torphins last week, we decided to give it a go and head west to Platform 22.

Along the railway line and through the forest track at the back of Archie's house and up towards "ITE" was the plan. We didn't get very far when we had our first fall of the year. In trying to negotiate his way round the gate at the end of the bumpy bit on the forest track, Archie, still strapped in to his pedals, tumbled slowly to the ground. No harm done other than to pride, so on we all soldiered.

When we got to the junction at ITE, there was a red Road Closed sign in the middle of the road. Of course, we ignored it, but soon we came across the reason for it. The road and surrounding fields were completely flooded for about 50 yards of low-lying road, with two cars stranded - one of them in the field, almost completely submerged. Most of us just cycled straight through - after all, we'd been through worse on Friday, but there were a couple of reluctant riders. One of them, of course, was Ian I don't get my feet wet Sharp and the other was Archie I don't do rain Cook, well known for his aversion to any form of precipitation, particularly on the golf course.

Eventually, Ian reluctantly rode through the flood, but Archie didn't fancy it at all and headed back to ITE to take the main road round. Here's the scene as Ken Black cycles through and Ian starts off, whilst a distant Archie (in orange) is already in retreat:

Bob noted that, ironically, the only thing visible in the submerged car was a Sat Nav unit!

As Ian finally approached us, I took this very short video:

After that, it was all very straight forward, with our main group of 9 joined again by Archie at Platform 22, but 10 of us descending on them at lunchtime wasn't perhaps the best idea. We did eventually all get seated after a major re-arrangement of the furniture, but perhaps we need to phone in advance in future if there's a large group of us? There was even a brief discussion about pre-arranging a tasting of the beers from their new pico brewery some time!

The team photo was taken outside:

l-r: Ian Sharp, Ken Black, Archie Cook, Ian Dring, Bob Elder (seated), John Perry, Scott Hunter (at back), Aiden Meehan (in orange), Ian Stewart & Ken Page

The return trip included a loop round Torphins golf course before taking the usual back road down past Campfield filling station then on to the Glassel Road and through Home Farm.

John P did the honours again with the route map:

Strava records 31 kms with 308 m of elevation - https://www.strava.com/activities/468097110