"Volunteer Blog Reporters were sought with NO response – so I’ve done it again !
The fine Spring weather was enough to bring out a record
equalling attendance of 14 cyclists this afternoon.
We had regulars Jack / Colin / John P / John M / Rob / Dick
/ Iain W / Ian Sh / Jeff / Ken P / along with International Jet Setter Les Gray
/ recent new boy Chris Low - and today the first attendance of Peter Seago.
Last minute Malcolm Lodge just made the starting grid .
With such a large number it was agreed that only Drum Garden
Centre could cope with us .
Les suggested – somewhat unusually – that we take the “ easy
“ Deeside Way outward and return via the Drum Castle route back. We
normally do it the other way round to get the hard bit out of the way before
the scones but I think the change round went down ok with all.
Our set off peloton came unstuck at an early stage when the
Council workmen surprised us by working ( Easter Monday ? ) on the Platties
Path.
Our yellow jackets were seen to scatter in all different
routes only to regroup along Deeside Way .
No more incidents of note – but a contravention of
Freewheelers Constitution was noted, when leadings group(s) obviously
anticipated a shortage of scones at Drum Garden Centre and failed to adhere to
our stopping / waiting for others rule !
Pleased to report that scones were indeed plentiful and
enjoyed by all. Very busy place with Easter trippers.
Our aforementioned route back home started off via the very
nice Drum Castle grounds ( take a note to visit the walled garden later in the
year ).
During coffee, mention had been made of potential back road
3 pm encounters with “Mums in Range Rovers picking up wee Johnnie from school
“.
I am pleased to report only one such Mum – and she was
courteous enough to pull her Range Rover onto the verge to let us past ( or was
it to get her 4 x 4 tyres dirty !! )
Our leaders paid more heed to our rules on the way back and
stopped on occasion for the pack to regroup – thank you.
Upon coming through Catterloch Farm the group each planned
their various routes home - with most selecting to turn off towards the Brewery
BUT Dick failed to hand signal / cut right across Jeff ( going straight on ) !
Collision narrowly avoided.
Can someone advise Dick where to attend Cycling Proficiency
Test Refresher Courses !!!!!!!!!!
I think Jeff may have used non-conventional signals towards
the offending Mr Taylor ………………………………
A good afternoon out though. Around 22 miles – though the
Strava Statos will confirm. Dick took the rather large group photo.
On the subject of large groups, can I suggest that in the
event of us having a “ large group “ ( and I won’t define how many “ large “ is
) we should split in to two groups of say 6 or 7 each , with each group
going to different places.
This in the interests of our own safety / other road users /
and of course our coffee shops ability to cope. Think this makes sense – it
doesn’t happen that often – and some of us start golf soon so numbers may be
less for a while .
The route map supplied by John P:
Strava shows 34 kms and 213 m of climbing.
Dick supplied the team photo:
 |
| l-r back row: Rob Pollard; Les Gray; John Perry; Jeff Dickens; Iain Wright; Chris Low; John Meaden front: Peter Seago; Ken Page; Jack Simpson; Ian Sharp; Colin Kilgour; Malcolm Lodge & Dick Taylor |
Only 2 other rides to report since the last blog - on Friday, Les went out for a short (11 kms) ride, and on the very same morning as the main Freewheelers ride, Mike - just returned from a week's ski-ing, was back out on the bike - avec femme again. They went out to Echt and round the Loch of Skene:
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