FNRttC Friday Night Ride to the Coast - Felpham near Bognor 22nd April 2011

[dccbysea]

"Come and have a beer dcc"

Love to but I've been BANNED. I will sashay along the seafront to say hi though. Have a great ride.

 

[Aperitif]

Damn I have neither. I do have a plastic bottle of cable end caps. How far would that get me?

Tim's got a rôle of Gaddafi tape in his pannier usually

 

[Aperitif]

"Come and have a beer dcc"

Love to but I've been BANNED. I will sashay along the seafront to say hi though. Have a great ride.

Now that's just being silly - I saw your first reply, there's no need to start returning to spiky is there?
The offer still stands.

 

[dccbysea]

I'm not banned any more? hooray!

 

[dellzeqq]

Damn I have neither. I do have a plastic bottle of cable end caps. How far would that get me?

the BMX park

 

[dellzeqq]

BMX bike. Now there's an idea.

you laugh. There's always hope that Billy (our mechanic last September) will come along on his. And don't count on keeping up.

 

[mmmmartin]

don't count on keeping up

Well, I had no trouble at all in keeping up on the Southend ride

. At first, anyway. Then I realised we weren't going to slow down

. So I after several hours in dark and ice I was

• in awe of Simon's ability to be both at the front and also keeping an eye on the middle while also going off and 'scoping out non-icy roads and
• thankful that Simon stopped the peleton for regular regroupings
  
  .

 

[dellzeqq]

I really must tie Billy down to coming on one of our rides. His problem is that he works most Saturdays.

He's about six foot two, and the BMX looks like some kind of adapted rollerskate on him.

Adrian - do you want me to see if I can borrow a tall bike from Chris at Baker Street Bikes for you?

 

[mmmmartin]

I have looked further

Just one single click got me straight to these words of wisdom:

"Every rider has to join The Fridays, whether he or she is a CTC, LCC or BC member or not. It costs £1 a year.
There will be only five places on each ride for non-CTC members - and these will go pretty quickly. If you don't fancy parting with £36 to join the CTC, then you can join as a affiliate member for £12 via The Fridays.
To join the CTC via The Fridays send a cheque payable to CTC for £12 (or £8 if you're not coming on the March 18th ride) to me at"

Which is about as clear as it can possibly be, IMHO

 

[dellzeqq]

..except I've just taken out the reference to £8 because, as I say, £12 for eleven months has got to be a better deal than £8 for six months. Grateful for the reminder, Martin! I've just got to remember to put it back in again sometime in the summer!

 

[dccbysea]

You're a better man than I am Martin Brice. Well I make it one click to here: http://fnrttc.blogspot.com/ Having done so I am presented with an array of 15 very attractive hyperlinked pictures with 19 hyperlink text options on the right.
The pictures by their nature capture my attention, and so because I wanted to enter the Bognor ride, I clicked on the picture of Bognor.
This then opens a page with an ochre coloured bar across the bottom which states "email fnrttc@yahoo.co.uk for details". So I did, and that's when the trouble started...

 

[mmmmartin]

Well I make it one click to here: http://fnrttc.blogspot.com/

But as Frank most helpfully pointed out to you yesterday, with his explanatory note:

Always the way, I'm afraid. Insurance policies - such as yours and the Fridays' one - all have their limitations and exceptions. I'm a member of both AUK and CTC but can't ride in a BC race without getting their insurance.

It's explained here

I suppose if you are given two links to read and don't look at one of them, you will tend, on balance, to miss out on what Simon is trying to tell you.

 

[dellzeqq]

the low point was trying to get LCC riders a break on a CTC ride. Given that

a) the LCC and the CTC use the same underwriter
b) the LCC and the CTC use the same insurer

I thought I had chances.

But, when you think about it, insurers have to quantify a risk so that they can price the job. The last thing they want is a creative interpretation of that risk. I'm temperamentally averse to insurance, but I can see that insurers want to put things in neat packages. And, while I would contend that night rides are inherently safe, probably safer than day rides, if you rock up to the underwriters saying 'I'd like to insure a group ride of 100 people to ride through the night, oh, and, by the way, Catseyes Affleck has a bump on his head that makes him talk to ambulance folk' you could forgive them for thinking 'there are easier ways of earning a crust than talking to this loon'.

 

[StuAff]

if you rock up to the underwriters saying 'I'd like to insure a group ride of 100 people to ride through the night, oh, and, by the way, Catseyes Affleck has a bump on his head that makes him talk to ambulance folk' you could forgive them for thinking 'there are easier ways of earning a crust than talking to this loon'.

Enough of the Catseyes already..

 

[dccbysea]

well I agree with the temperamental bit at least ;-)