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| Rare Friday night Appearances for Trevor And Stuart! |
Despite strong winds we had a good turn out of six riders including Trevor and Stuart who we haven't seen on a Friday night ride for a long while. The ride commenced with the usual scary decent down Battery Hill in the dark. I took it easier than the others , allowing myself to get dropped but I knew that it wouldn't take much to catch up with Malcolm along the sea defences as he was riding a fixed wheel with a low gear. The wind was so strong that we were doing 30 mph with no effort at all. With us having all dropped Malcolm we decided we would wait at at the temporary traffic lights near some road works at Winchelsea. As soon as the lights turned amber we started to move again, by this time Malcolm had caught up with the group and shot past us at a tremendous rate of knots. Suddenly as the rest of us picked up speed, there was a loud clunk and Trevor had to pull over. He had hit a small but deep pothole and suffered a blow-out on the front tyre. Knowing the others would catch me on the Broad Oak drag , I left them all to fix the puncture and gave chase to Malcolm, hoping to catch up with him before the end of the climb. I must admit I really enjoyed climbing at my own pace in the dark with just the sound of heavy breathing for company. I did make ground on Malcolm but arrived a couple of minutes after
him at Broadoak. After waiting some time we wondered where the others were. We tried to ring them but no one answered so assumed they must be on their way. After some more time they appeared more or less together. Apparently the pothole had not just punctured the front wheel it had also punctured the rear as well. Also Trevor said his bike felt strange (rim damage?) so Stuart and Trevor decided to stick to the main road through Westfield while the rest of us made the usual ascent of Stonestile.
PS Many thanks to the kind lady who waited with he headlights shining on Trevor's bike while he fixed the punctures
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