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(Small) Blue ride to the Happy Café

  • Date: 15 March 2020
  • By: Martin Crapper

Riders: erm, not a lot Mick Lee for the whole route Diana Simpson caught us having coffee and I (Martin Crapper) made up the rest of “us”.

The forecast was good or bad depending on which weather app you looked at!  Many obviously thought the weather was going to be horrendous or wanted to avoid giving us elderly few the virus.

But Mick and I were keen and out of the gate first on a pre planned route which sadly we hadn’t shared with Diana! But more of her later. 

Stripe road and going well - but Garmin was having a hiccup so I fiddle with it using a technique know to most men. First stop pedalling, second twiddle with the damn Garmin. Quite a lot of fiddling. Thought I had it going so looked up to find Mick dwindling into the see of daffodils on the horizon. 

Caught up going into Rossington and stuck to his wheel to recover until he noticed! 

An easy ride through Rossington and past the airport with a stop at the traffic lights to wait for Diana - well we met her there once before! 

We waited and waited until we ran out of wait. No answer on the phone and no reply to the text so on we went. 

With little breeze and even less traffic we chatted and pedalled through Wroot and onto Sandtoft finding the café half full of cyclists and an old friend of Mick’s. 

We were about finished with our coffees when a local aviator put on a bit of entertainment. The spray when he hit the puddle was worse than Mick’s bike without mudguards. 

At this point Diana arrived, having seen the text and missed the call she rightly felt she had to catch us up. So we sat down again and watched her drink before setting off back as a group of 3. 

We were going to cycle the full length of idle bank but the breeze was now verging on gale force and with no shelter we chickened out and went back through Wroot. But to give us a few more miles we did go back through Misson before pausing at the Austerfield junction to part with Diana and to take the enhanced photo. 

Traffic had built up a bit and it was single file all the way home.

Looks like the virus will have an effect, no more Blue rides for a while and even on your own you need to think carefully about a coffee stop. Best to be self sufficient and 2 metres away from anyone with you.

Things may change but take great care and I hope to see you around in the future. 

(Small) Blue ride to the Happy Café