11/1 - Oh Hole---y Night

Good Turn Out For A Friday Night Ride

Good turnout for a Friday night ride with eight riders present. This included Steve B who has been out of action with the Noro virus. Much to our disappointment, the patching work on Battery Hill only seems to apply to the upside so we had our normal jarring descent. The big pile of pebbles which must have accidentally fallen out of one of the sea defence lorries on the early part of the nature reserve path had been cleared away by John during the week with his plastic shovel, so we were able to make good time on this part of the route. As usual I was the slowest one up the long drag to Broad Oak where the others were waiting, I wasn't too far behind Duncan but that was only because he had stopped for a pee! Steve D is going really well this winter and managed to stay with Simon G and the others all the way up to the top of the long drag. He is still on his cheapo Raleigh as he has had to send his new carbon planet X bike back, having decided he needed the next size up. None of the potholes that myself and John had reported on the approach to stonestile have been fixed and two more nasty ones, side by side have appeared since last week.With eight of us riding together, this led to the serenity of the still night being broken by frantic cries of "HOLE". The main group (Simon, Nathan, Duncan, Malc) soon disappeared up the climb but Steve D's legs were now wasted so team Raleigh rode up more or less together. We were all really glad to have ridden the Friday night ride as with all forecasts predicting freezing weather all week, who knows when we will be able to ride again?