June week 1

It's not been a great start, weather-wise, to the month. There was definitely no prospect of a Tuesday Trundle this week as the downpour even closed the golf course. Monday wasn't quite as bad, but it was still a fairly dreich day and those of us playing golf in the Seniors match certainly had to use our waterproofs at times. It didn't deter all of the afternoon Freewheelers however as 6 of them completed what I'm told was a fairly tough ride up Cairn mon Earn, organised by Bob Elder - so tough and miserable, in fact, that our Man from the Algarve gave up less than half way in to the ride.

Six of them made it all the way round and were finally rewarded with coffee and scones at the Milton. here's some of the photos, courtesy of John Morton:

Strava recorded 35 kms and 466 m for this ride, with Messrs Elder, Leslie, Meaden, Perry, Simpson, Taylor and photographer Morton completing the route.

Today (Thursday) was voting day and, unusually, there was a gathering of 3 separate groups at the Guide Hut at 9 am - two of them from the dark side. Occasional FW's Reilly, Morton and Meaden were seen speeding off on their slick road bikes with David Kirton in tow, heading to do Cairn o' Mount again. Mike's other half and her cycling buddy Alison were also there, heading towards Aboyne, but we still managed a gathering of 8 FW's heading towards Les' suggested destination of Platform 22.

It was early, so we started off on the easterly route to Torphins, arriving on schedule shortly after P22 opened. We met another group of Banchory yellow jackets there - Rod Dallas, Ramsay Duncan and Ron Mudie - and we took time to check out their bikes to make sure they were not fitted with electric motors - they weren't. Here's our team photo:

l-r: Ian Stewart, Dick Taylor, Drew Leslie, Hugh Riches, Bob Elder (holding bike), Les Gray, Scott Hunter and Ken Page

We took the golf course loop back and Strava recorded the ride at 35 kms/405 m. This was ride number 60 on this year's database. The average attendance so far is just 7, travelling 33 kms with 302 m of climbing.