Rides since Monday

Les was out for a short ride on Tuesday in the Algarve - just 9 kms per Strava. Then I was out again on Thursday morning on a 29 kms ride up to the Outer Harbour where I watched the early morning departure of a container ship:

Time-wise, the next group out were the Deeside Thursday morning crowd, reported on by Ken P:

"A somewhat fragmented schedule today with Dick going earlier and Ian Sharp and some others going in the afternoon. Nonetheless three stalwarts set off at 10 am as usual (Jeff, Ian and Ken). Robin was scheduled to join us but pulled out at the last moment because the sun wasn't shining!

We proceeded past Les Gray's house towards the AA box then towards Finzean. However as the three of us are athletes we turned right at Finzean up the hill and a pretty substantial hill it turned out to be. We certainly earned our scones in the farm shop. Then back to homeward along the valley - pretty much dry throughout."

Jeff supplied the full stats and route:

The report from the afternoon crew was supplied by Mike:

"And then there were three! We had a very pleasant run up past Knappach House, crossed the Slug road and made our way through the various bits of Durris. The weather was pretty kind to us with 5 degrees and light wind and only the occasional suggestion of rain.

After crossing the bridge and climbing into Drumoak it was decided to head home via the Milton for coffee. What had been a fairly sedate pace of 11.2 mph our repose was shattered by a man on a mission as John Meaden shot off like Cavendish muttering something about Strava! By this time the average speed had risen to 11.8 mph.

When John Perry and myself finally reeled him in at the coffee shop he was shown the yellow card and coffee  was taken. The yellow card was rescinded however when John M paid the bill and we made our way back to Banchory. "

John's Strava stats show the distance covered was 34 kms with 294 m of climbing and he also supplied the usual route map:

That was the 19th official Freewheelers ride since this year's database started at the Xmas lunch and it took total climbing over the 5,000 metre mark.