Egged

[Bollo]

I've considered giving the Randonnee a bash, trouble is it seems to coincide with my trips to Scotland, and I do enough cycling anyway commuting to work so I'm not sure if I can be bothered.

You'd have loved this year's Randonnee. They alternate the direction each year, and this years was anticlockwise from East Cowes. So, all us Oveners get off the Red Funnel, sign-up and then go straight to the chain bridge. ZZ Top lets the cars on and squeezes on one or two bikes, goes across, comes back, clears the crowd of cyclists to let the cars on, goes across, comes back, clears the bigger crowd of cyclists to let some later arriving cars on, goes, across comes back.....

Third time round there's a massive crowd of several hundred cyclists, most of whom have been waiting over half an hour. The cars (none of which have been waiting for more than a few minutes) cannot get through. ZZ Top is not happy. He tries to clear the crowds to let the cars on but we are not having it. I'm proud to say that I was the first to open my trap and discuss the matter with him - not rude at all - just pointing out that one crossing would clear us all away. So he threatens to shut the ferry. So we ignore him and effectively board the vessel. By the time this has sorted itself out the next ferry has pulled in and by all accounts he did the same thing again. So much for recognising a pattern. Twat!

 

[smeg]

Third time round there's a massive crowd of several hundred cyclists, most of whom have been waiting over half an hour. The cars (none of which have been waiting for more than a few minutes) cannot get through. ZZ Top is not happy. He tries to clear the crowds to let the cars on but we are not having it.

Hahaha! That must have made their day. Rather than take part I could have sat on that bench the East Cowes side to watch the show with a bag of chips/popcorn and a coke and had a good laugh.
Similarly during Cowes Week they were stopping foot passengers boarding because there were so many of them to get the cars on. As you can imagine quite a few weren't too happy about that and had a few words to say.
That four-eyed Mr.Frizzy I mentioned also told me if I didn't move he'd have to charge me the same as a car, it was at that point when I nearly told him where to go. I had only gone amongst the cars in the first place because I thought they were about to lift the ramp up and cross (another cyclist came alongside me too), they looked as though they were about to when I boarded, but I guess some more cars turned up and they just had to squeeze them on rather than let them wait for the next crossing.