On a perfect summer's evening we started out with eight riders, a
few light because Colin, Greg and Martyn decided to get some road
miles in ahead of the fast approaching Classic. We did see the welcome
return of Nick, we'd missed him over the winter months. Plus there
was Dan who was running
late,
he tried
to catch us up, but had a mechanical, so
retired
home
for tea!
Given such good conditions, I had suggested the long route to Stephen's
Grave. This gave rise to the suspicion that the Routemeister had
hacked into my email account, not so, this was all my own idea!!
As nobody had objected to this trip, off we went with Paul setting
the
hare's
pace
to Huckworthy.
We did
the usual trick and managed to get split before reaching Pew Tor!
It did give us a chance to take in the stunning views for the first,
but not last, time this evening.
We made good progress to Cox Tor then skirted around the south side
and dropped down the track, crossed the stream then up hill for
some time until we finally came across Stephen's
Grave. We watched the sun go down then carried on up Paddy's
Track beside White Tor before we dropped off back towards Roos Tor.
From here the decision was not to lose height and join up the loop,
but to ride up between Roos and Cox Tors.
The plan was good, the
execution not, for we suffered badly in the clitter! We were eventually able
to remount and enjoyed the fast decent to the B3357, then instead
of circumnavigating Pew Tor went right over the top! At the bottom
of Pew Tor it was just a quick road race to HQ, the one part of the
evening where Steve decided to get his Classic training in, disappearing
out of sight! On the evidence of the last two weeks, both Steve and
Rob look in pretty good shape for the hundred miler and with the
Meister and Alex in tow, the pace could be pretty imprerssive.
There were a few firsts this evening, arriving late at HQ (where
Dan was waiting for us), noboby had more than one pint and, thanks
to Gidon, you can actually see the first
ever 'off' caught on camera!!
