Nine pacers started out from Brackla this morning, under threatening grey skies. Haydn, TS Steve, Stephen, Allan, Jason, Mark R, Chris G, Simon (guest) and me.
Fortunately the weather 'held' as we headed out into the wind along the coast road. Sharing the workload we made decent time to Barry then Penarth where we stopped at 11:00 for two minutes silence. Shortly after this Haydn punctured, before repeating with a spectacular bang 5 minutes later. A damaged tyre required the help of Chris G's plastic tyre boot which survived to get Haydn home. Allan and Steven carried on at this point but we were joined by Paul who had chased us around the coast, meeting up with Amblers twice, en route!
Continued on to Duffryn Gardens for coffee where Steven had just arrived, taking a detour on his way there. Excellent coffee and flapjack, before setting off for home, tailwind helped us along A48, briefly dropped Simon who was towed back to the group by Paul and myself. Would have been bad form to lose a guest.
Just under 60 miles by the time we got back to Brackla, another enjoyable ride.
I'm away next weekend and 'racing' the Sunday after, so will see you on 29th, hopefully recovered from the club dinner!
