Today's Adventure Ride.
Myself, Lindsey, Adrian, Mick (new rider) and our leader for the day Robin.
After a slight worry with emails last minute on the way there questioning start time and if the gates would be open it was with some relief that everyone did turn up for the ride at 9.00am and the gates to Old Moor were open.
Great to see a new rider out with us today - Mick - thanks for coming.
So off we set on what is fair to say a challenging first half of the ride. Robin obviously wanted to carry on my tradition from the last ride of finding a few viscous brambles and the odd nettle. It was brought to the groups attention that in fact a bit of nettle rash is good for the joints.....
Holding on to the handlebars tighter than usual we passed through the delights of Goldthorpe and on to equally delightful Grimethorpe where I could almost hear a brass band and saw what perhaps was one of the very streets Brassed Off was filmed.
A busy auction of some sort on the edge of a traveller camp and a rather protective dog on a chain saw us increase pace.....but actually the countryside around Grimethorpe is actually quite scenic and undulating.
There is a definite statistics creeping into our adventure rides. Run tubes and you get punctures that need to be sorted.....new rider Mick unfortunately a casualty of the dreaded thorn.
We were more than ready for the cafe stop at Wintersett Reservoir - the till was "down" but thankfully there was enough cash between us.
The second half of the ride was more "pleasurable" as the going was easier mainly returning on the TPT.
Thanks Robin for organising the route.....the few left, no right, maybe straight ons to be expected.....at least we corrected where necessary before going too far off route.
Another excellent traffic hassle free-in the main-route.
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