The forecast was not great, not rain but lots of wind fresh over from the USA! But we met at the CC full of anticipation. The destination was altered to make the best of the wind on the way home. Plan B happens often!
Riders were: Linda Bardsley, Dave Bowden, Kevin Thomas, Robin Heyward, Rob Drohan, Martin Crapper a nice comfortable group of 6. I know you can count!
Just because we could we set off left out of the gate, right and over the motorway bridge before coming out in the Bawtry road just past the other motorway bridge.
Traffic was heavier than expected and we went single file most of the way through the Harworth roundabouts and left into the industrial estate. So far the wind didn’t seem that bad! We paused a while to check we were all Ok which happily we were.
We went on through Serlby and on towards Mattersey where we stopped to consider direction/wind. We all seemed OK so far which made the decision to go the exposed route through Drakeholes, Clayworth and Hatton rather than Sutton etc. I thought we got away with it quite well but I admit the conversation took my mind off the struggle. But it was the same for us all! Even for Rob who out front with Robin turned right and lead us on towards Retford.
It was a struggle here and there but we could smell the coffee and made it into the square. There seemed to be cars parked everywhere but little sign of pedestrians. We passed another cyclist on the square also heading for the Ten Green Bottled who turned out to be Tom who Rob knew from his rides with the Dinnington group.
We ordered and found a table outside as it was (I thought) warm enough. Some of us put extra layers on thinking it was cool but we enjoyed the food and drinks. We were anticipating a speedy ride home after all we headed into the wind all the way out.
Didn’t really work that way of course! We set off still into wind all the way to the green mile turning expecting a generous push towards Barnby Moor. There were bits where we felt a bit of benefit but generally we were going into wind. It was only after we got passed Barnby Moor that we had a nice strong wind behind us.
From Blyth we headed for Oldcotes getting stuck at the lights over the little river until a car came along to trigger the change to green. We paused at the next lights in Oldcotes where Rob left us and then turned right for home.
It had been uneventful but a ride I would do again in similar conditions and company. We need to back chaps and take a photo! Headcam came to the rescue with a before and after of some of us.
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