We endeavour to please as many people as possible and as such we start off around 1 in 6 of our rides in East Hull.Riding around the Holderness plains is completely different from riding in the Yorkshire Wolds.
You may be riding on the flat but you’ll nearly always have a strong wind to contend with, and Saturday’s ride was no exception.The forecast was for an overcast cold morning with a strong Easterly growing stronger as the day progressed.  The sun was expected to make an appearance around 10-11am, hopefully at the coffee stop time!

 

Some of our members were brave enough to ride across town to the start, I commute every day into the city centre so was quite happy to steal a lift from Charlie to avoid the dangers of congested pot holed streets for once.

On arrival we had a minute to spare before the 9am start so it was a rush to get the bikes sorted and everything in place before the off.

Today’s ride stats – 18 started, 0 new riders and 5 ladies

 

The trip was organised as a 42 mile wander around an anti-clockwise course that took in Hornsea.
As has become the norm on our winter trips to the coast we expected to stop off for coffee in Hornsea, normally the coffee stop is reserved for the end of a ride but we relax the rules a little when it’s cold..

 

We split into three groups as we headed East away from the Swiss Cottage, the road is narrow in places and we’ve had too many narrow passes, by reducing the group sizes and making sure they’re compact it goes some way to pacify the impatient driver out there, it won’t stop them but it makes it safer for us if there’s less of us to overtake.

 

Life returned to normal once we turned off for Lelly where we had a brief stop for June to contact another member who was to meet us a bit further into the route.

Very soon we had to say goodbye to Tolsten who unfortunately was suffering from knee problems, he hasn’t ridden for over a year so he’s doing the right thing of riding but reducing the distance on offer, this left us with 17 on the ride.

The wind was quite strong but no where as bad as we suffered a few weeks back, but we still packed together on the quiet back roads and produced an admiral peleton.

🙂

Charlie, who had had 5 cups of coffee before the start, kept putting in sprints to get ahead, stop take a picture and then catch us up again. Great for the club and I’m sure the intervals are great for keeping him fit – the question is though – “..when was the last time you slept Charlie?”

We kept on our Easterly course until just outside of Roos – here we headed north and the wind was on our side, still cold but no where near as bad.
It was around here that we picked up Flo bringing our number back up to 18.The route North takes us through very gentle countryside and for some strange reason it was very quiet – just the odd shout of ‘Car back’ to keep us focussed.It seemed no time at all before we were on the outskirts of Hornsea, we decided to go the scenic route to our usual cafe and passed along the see front.  With the sun trying to break through the clouds and the pack strung out behind me it the little camera mounted on the back of my helmet managed to frame a lovely shot.

We descended en masse upon Knights of Hornsea who did their best to server 18 caffeine addicts (one of us wasn’t pro enough to have coffee and went for a ‘cola’ instead… I won’t publicly shame him …)Some took refuge from the cold inside while others (some say foolish!) braved the elements, which when the sun did shine were actually pleasantly spring like.

Coffee was consumed, chat was had and times were pleasant.. Righting the World and passing the time talking all things bike is a lovely when with like minded people.A quick visit to the ‘facilities’  – including the wobbly tap on the sink and it was then time to move off, we headed West out of Hornsea past the Mere, the road here is quick, narrow and winding, cars soon stack up desperately wanting to overtake.

We do our best to produce gaps and wave a couple through, most drivers are appreciative of our efforts and give us plenty of room and a wave, but there are always the bad few..Just before the turn off for Sigglesthorne (awesome name!) I heard an all too familiar ‘ping’ – a spoke had given up and gone west…

 

I rode on for a little while and stopped as soon as it was safe, a bit of “re-engineering” soon placed the broken spoke into a place where it couldn’t cause any damage, and thanks to the rider who rightly pointed out that the spoke should be bent so it follows the wheel direction thus reducing the chances of it catching!

My back wheel was wobbly but the Shimano RS30 wheels are strong so I didn’t think I’d have a problem getting home, luckily I had a spoke ready to fit.

The cause of the breakage? – Well that’s my fault.. A year ago I fitted a new chain without counting the links, it needed a few removing..
When I first rode the new chain I changed down at speed and it got caught between the largest cog and the spokes – really jammed in there..
Now I know why it’s called the dork disc – thanks for pointing that out to me… :-\

When I finally removed the chain I noticed that 3 spokes had been damaged, they lasted about 10-15mths before they all snapped.. Lesson – the dork disc is useful and count your chain links!

Back to the ride…

Because of my spoke failure we got off the road a little too early and then started an impromptu meander around the Holderness wilderness.

Soon we said goodbye to Flo as she headed back to her start point.

A little further along the back roads I noticed it was quiet – where was Charlie?Not at the front, not at the back he seemed to have vanished…?

A brief stop allowed to ring him but no answer – I had visions of him lying in a ditch at the side of the road.. or as is Charlies trick – the back seat of a car after entering by the windscreen…

 

We set off again and a few seconds later Rammstein’s “Ich Will” started up from my phone, seeing as we were close to the end of the ride the rest of the group carried on.

It turned out he missed our turning and had completed the ride already – he was quite happy ‘chill-axing’ at the Swiss Cottage – that’s the last time I worry about him!

I then had to put my head down and time trial the last section to catch up – which I did, just at the entrance to the Swiss Cottage car park..

The route allowed for a nice sociable ride on a cold breezy morning..  but as lessoned learnt we will try not to plan any more East Hull trips on a Saturday, the cross town traffic some of the members encountered on the way home were terrible – Sundays only from now on..