first time to Whitstable and very impressed, loved the ride, no hills to speak of and a helping wind, can't ask for more. My thanks to everyone involved, my awe at the sheer ease of participating is still not fading. Took a couple of turns at waymarking, one of which probably wasn't needed. Simon had so many volunteers that I think he was throwing in extra to give everyone a turn. Had a go at opening up for the last 6 miles, foolishly thought I could catch the front half dozen or so. Boy was I wrong, they only had about 80 yards on me but I just couldn't close the gap. Passed a couple in between and picked up a 'drafter' in the form of Tanya. Thankfully as I started to flag she took her turn and towed me into Whitstable. All going well until we realised neither of us had a clue where the cafe was. We trusted to blind luck and then lost faith and Tanya stopped twice to ask directions. Still made it not far behind the leaders and Tanya, very generously, didn't speed up and drop me at the end. I then indulged in a breakfast of a 99 with flake, an orange juice and, a little later, a hot chocolate.
Lounging at the Waterfront cafe bar, we had an Aperitif, along with several others, who indulged in the odd drink. Quite perked us all up, we went from sitting looking dopey, to sitting looking drunk and dopey. Allegedly Origamist has 12 birthdays a year and they all coincide with the full moon. I probably had 2, maybe 3, pints, but the others all got a little greedy! A lot of laughs, plenty of stupid stuff, I got told off, quite rightly, for rambling(felt like being at home) and the day passed remarkably quickly. The trip home was smoother than I thought it might be. A bath followed by Chinese takeaway rounded the day off and head, to pillow, to sleep seemed to happen simultaneously.
I do need to make one apology, to DavyW, at one point I was a little cruel in mentioning that we needed approx 10 million women on the ride to give him a decent chance of 'scoring'. I now realise that the population of planet Earth isn't yet big enough for him to have a hope.
) the same interest in Sandy Sykes. Our art tutor...Bear in mind that I attended 20 years before User10571 (the Art School silly - what were you thinking?).
). Turns out you shouldn’t trust bike shops … I spent the next 30 miles with the chain link half on/off and waiting for it to break again… luckily made it all the way home. It did mean …
