Amblers Club Run - 16 Nov

[Mark Pope]

A number of Amblers have suggested hanging on to the coat tails of the Pacers this week. Andy will be riding the tandem with Keith and with a fair wind we should be able to get sucked along in their slipstream. The route is flat (ish) and will take in the coast road via Ewenny, Ogmore, Wick to Barry, then Penarth and Cardiff Bay where we can plant the Oggie flag in enemy territory and possibly take out a mortgage on a coffee. The route back is via Dinas Powis - Wenvoe - Duffryn after which we can reappraise the route back. For obvious reasons the Pacers plus tandem will power back via the A48, Treos and Brackla. The Amblers have a variety of options that avoid the A48 but we can see how we feel tomorrow. We may be joined by a few 25ers too, so I'll keep an eye on the pace and back markers if things hot up a bit. The distance is between 55-60 miles depending on our route back after Duffryn.

The proposed Pacers route is available via a Garmin link on their thread. See you tomorrow.

Mark

[Paul Longthorn]

Sounds great Mark see you tomorrow.

[Mark Pope]

Well it was a great idea on Friday night to merge the Amblers with the Pacers plus tandem for a flat (ish) ride around the coast road to Cardiff Bay and back. However, soon after the impressive club peloton left Bridgend the groups splintered at the first sight of the climb up to Ogmore. After that we settled down to a steady Amblers pace and re-grouped with the following riders:

Paul Longthorn
Andrew S
Tom
Jonathan
Neil
Bowen (Special Guest Appearance)
Roy 1 (Good effort stepping up from the 25ers)
Wayne E
Richard B
Tony M
Mark P

Various sub-groups split off at various points leaving 6 of us to briefly meet up with the Pacers at the Norwegian Church in the Bay. After a 15 minute busk we'd rustled up enough money to buy a cup of tea between the 6 of us before heading back towards Brackla via a less industrial route through Dinas/Wenvoe/Llancarfan/St Mary's Church/Llanmaes and Ewenny. We flew past the planned turn to Siginstone so we ended up doing about 5 miles longer than planned. The total ride was 66 miles (for me) despite Strava giving up the ghost when entering the electro-magnetic wasteland that is Barry (and I live there!) and clocking me at only 22 miles.  I've also taken on board the comments about the term flat ride that I had previously posted (well I did say flat (ish) . An enjoyable ride nevertheless, despite a biting wind and a particularly good effort from Jonathan who hung on despite just coming back from an injury. A shorter ride next week, promise!!

[Mark Pope]

Oops, sorry I forgot Terry Anthony. Ironic considering he'd already ridden 20 miles before we started from Brackla and carried on for a few more miles after we'd finished!