X- Rated

The X-men Commeth

With the summer rain coming down all morning and well into the afternoon, the number of potential riders was falling like Indian test wickets. One after another the pessimists in the crew decided there was no chance of it clearing up and decided to opt out of the evening ride. Even our own Iron Man, Everton, decided it was going to be too wet (possibly fear of rust?) and elected to go to the gym along with several other of our more sensible colleagues.

Everton has recently qualified as an X-Biking instructor and runs several classes a week at the local leisure centre. X-Biking is a cross between spinning, cross training and sadomasochism, especially when Ev's calling the shots, Those who have been joining in have certainly seen increased fitness levels in a very short period of time. We' re hoping Everton will be able to arrange weekly sessions for the whole club when our Thursday night rides finish in a few weeks time.

Anyway, back to the real cycling. By 4 o'clock we were down to about four definites and a couple of "maybes". It was still raining but the Ampthill weather centre still insisted it would stop at 18.00, there'd be a brief but heavy shower at 19.00 and then it would clear up. After a brief debate about deferring until 19.00, the optimists amongst us decided to throw caution to the wind and seven of us set-off into the gloom at our usual time.

Our optimism was somewhat tempered by the black clouds on the horizon and we chose a prudent route that would keep us reasonably close to home should we need to bail out at any time. Heading out to Tingrith via Steppingly, we began the slow grind up Long Lane to Toddington. At a touch under two miles, Long Lane is aptly named; about two thirds of it is up-hill and it has always been one of our bigger challenges. At least tonight it was cool, the wind was behind us and there were none of the fast boys to make we mere mortals feel inadequate. Even so, David Doors was very glad to complete his inaugural assent and can now well and truly claim to be an Ampthill Cyclist.

As we entered Toddington on the dot of 19.00 the heavens opened right on cue. Pulling over to don water proofs, some how we managed to lose Kieth and Greavsie. Most of us were convinced Mick had done his usual disappearing-off-the-front trick and as Kieth is one of the fastest descenders amongst us we thought he'd led the charge down hill into Milton Bryan. It was only when phones started ringing at he bottom of the hill and we picked up some fairly abusive messages that we realised we'd left them both at the top of Long Lane.
Milton Bryan is a somewhat genteel village and the locals clearly don't think much of being invaded by Lycra clad louts from the other side of Woburn Park. I think they thought we were casing the joint as we waited for Mick & Kieth and we got some very strange looks from passing traffic.
Fortunately the rain had stopped and after regrouping we headed on to Woburn, climbing through the deer park to Eversholt, Steppingly and back to the Albion and the Old Sun for some excellent beer and some not too bad banter.

Not the longest of rides, but well worth the effort and the soaking. One up for optimism.