19/12 Fri Night Ride- Newbie Nigel Nails Stonestile

Perfect night time weather brought out a double figure turnout of riders for the Friday night ride. I was glad to unexpectedly be there to see how new HSLCC rider Nigel Fitchett would get on. Nigel really enjoyed his first ever weds chain-gang and was keen to do more group riding ( having ridden for years on his own). Our one minute split down battery hill now works like clockwork and soon after the bottom of Battery Hill we were all safely together again. Easy group riding through the reserve proceeded a burst of effort up the long drag to Broad-oak . Barney is in recovery mode from an illness so honours went to Alex and Steve B for arriving first. At the back of the group myself and Peter got a mini through and off going with Nigel F just behind us. I don't think Nigel realised just how long this drag is because at one point he put on a burst of speed and opened up a gap on us, only to pay the price for this burst of energy by losing our wheels as we clawed him back and went past him. Unlike a few weeks ago we had no trouble with members of the public, in fact we seemed to receive a number of admiring glancing from people as we gracefully swept downhill through Brede and towards Wesfield. Nigel acquitted himself really well for his first successful ascent of Stonestile and was only around a minute behind myself and Steve D. Alex and Barney made a joint Armstrong-Pantani effort to cross the crest together in first place.

Nigel Nails Stonestile!