21/11 Fri Night Ride- Minute men

I woke up from an unplanned nap just in time to start riding up to the lodge to meet the others for the Friday night ride. Still half asleep my legs felt so stiff and unresponsive that I briefly considered turning back. Meeting up with Malcolm, he felt much the same and we declared we would take it easy so as  to give our tired muscles an easy workout. With only a couple of minutes to spare, Dan and Kirby (on only his second Fri night ride) just caught us before departure time, this gave a respectable tally of seven riders.

Myself and Malcolm set off one minute before the others down battery hill. This made the descent much less daunting for me especially as I was wearing my spare pair of specs with an out of date prescription which made everything slightly blurry.

Along the sea defences Diego and John S soon caught up with us but it wasn't until the nature reserve that we were all back together as Dan and Simon had to help shepherd Kirby down battery hill as his current front light was far too feeble for such a task.This gave me a chance to admire the bright lights in the distance coming towards us, they actually looked brighter than the headlights of cars going past them. This is very reassuring.

Before long we had begun the five mile drag up to Broadoak. Everyone stepped up a gear and rode up at their own pace. On arrival I thought I was last (my usual spot) but then we realised Kirby wasn't there and must be somewhere on the climb, left alone with his underpowered light. Feeling concerned, Dan and Simon headed back down the hill to shepherd Kirby up but as it turned out Kirby was only about a minute back. Giving Kirby a couple of minutes to get his breath back we all bombarded him with suggestions about which type and model of front light he needs to purchase. Moon compact light or Cree 2 battery pack lights seemed most popular.

Our descent down towards Wesfield seemed a bit more sedate than normal, probably because demon descender Marcus was off with 'man flu' .

Now all that was left was the tortuous ascent of Stonestile. Kirby has only been riding a couple of months and so is doing extremely well for such a novice and had successfully climbed Stonestile the week before. Unfortunately I wasn't there to photograph the moment for prosperity but at least I got  a picture of his second successful ascent with kirby just having enough energy left for the traditional 'victory' pose.

Kirby Conquors Stonestile, Again!