Summer is most definitely here. I am assured of this for 2 solid reasons.

1) Waking up on Saturday morning to see the trees in moving like billy-o in the easterly wind

2) I felt it acceptable to put 5 pints down before dinner on Friday and still try to make the fast ride group. This doesn’t happen in winter. Usually because I stay in bed.

And so it was, I dragged my parched cadaver to Coode street on Saturday morning, to see a rather large group of bright eyed racers. The fast group set off with perhaps 20 riders, nearly all of which had donned the deep wheelsets. Pain was clearly on the agenda. After a fairly easy roll out to Guildford road, the tempo hit forte and we hammered through to Guilford in no time at all. The roll through was working superbly, but hitting the front  and the strong easterly was like a pouring porridge on the drive train.

After the 4^th roll through, I was starting the realise that my A game was most definitely in the till at the CBD. Fortunately a rather large freight train lead to a re-group and lengthy stop at the crossing, allowing pulse rates to dip back into the orange, but the rate hit full whack again as soon as the gate went up and It wasn’t long before I and a couple of others were spat out the back, watching the ‘in form’ riders disappear into the distance. 4 of us formed up an Autobus and took a short cut, missing the loop up to the base of the hills and jumping in front of the main pack.

We set about working as a 4, rolling though nicely, but it wasn’t long before the drone of the HEDs, Zipps and other weaponry became audible, I set about raising the tempo and wondered how long we would be able to hold them off… not long. The train came through at full pelt, most of us jumping on at the back where we stayed, while the chaps at the front introduced us to the man with the hammer. The run back through Welshpool with the wind behind us was fun, apart from the minor mishap with a car pulling out in front of the group – I’m not sure how he didn’t see us, but fortunately what could have been a nasty pile up turned into a near miss thanks to keen eyes and careful handling of the situation. Good ride all round, I will be back with a less ‘Fat-yak’ed system, to see if it was me or the beer. Fingers crossed it was the latter.