What a fine day, little bit chilly to begin with but with bags of potential, it even seemed a shame to ride the winter bike with it being so fine. Nice early turnout at the club, with Hard Man of the North, Swiss Tony, Russ, Chris (Selley), Daz & myself. We were soon joined by Phil, Simon (Cannings - riding his fixed - dam fool), Catherine, Tony (Brunton) & Stuart (Chung - who made it to the club house despite having an altercation with a car on the way there - obviously a contender for hard man of the south). We almost sneaked away from the Dick Selley radar, but he caught us as we left. A route to Ashridge was agreed upon & off we set, Swiss feeling slightly worse for wear, headed back before we hit Woburn, escorted by Dick (one day Dick will put in a full club run, I have my eye on you young man).
A fairly lumpy route was followed, as we wound our way past the Brickhills, through Woburn & out towards the Chilterns. Simon set a comfortable but quick pace on his fixed, but got increasingly concerned about not going down 'Toms Hill' on the way home.
We finally made our way to Ashridge, with HMN, Catherine & myself forming the Autobus a minute or so back. We were joined by Richard, on a pre-arranged call & settled down to scrummy tuck as the sun shone upon us. After the break & with arm warmers, gillets & all manner of winter wear tucked in our jersey pockets off we sped. We decided to be kind to Simon & headed down the downs towards MK. The group was together on the valley floor & flying along, when Tony (Brunton) took a corner too fast & went down. Following his wheel I managed to bunny hop over Tony & narrowly missed a gravel bath myself. Catherine wasn't so lucky, getting a little too enthusiastic with the brakes & hit the deck as well. As usual (in cycling)the whole group stopped to examine the bikes, once happy that all was ok, the fallen riders were picked up from the ground, dusted down & off we went.
I waved goodbye to the group at the Leighton Buzzard turn, with Tony & HMN for company. Making it home with 50 miles on the clock in glorious sunshine.
 
 
Alan 'Tin Tin' Lawson