Date: Tuesday 26th March 2013
Route: WP, Pound, Dwarf’s Run, Doublewaters, Grenofen Bridge, below Gem Bridge, HQ.
Riders: James, Gidon, & Sam
Depart: 19:45
Arrive HQ: 22:00
Distance: 11.2 miles
Weather: Dry, but very cold

Where is everyone?

I stood in Willowby Park wondering what had gone wrong. Had I misread the clock on leaving the house or had I just ridden the short distance across Yelverton ridiculously slowly meaning that I’d missed everyone? No, it was just the lowest attendance for some time which was strange because apart from it being very cold it was looking like a lovely evening.

I knew Gidon was running late, so at least there would be someone to cycle with to make it worth having put on just about all the cycle kit I own to stay warm. Just then my phone rang, but by the time I got it out my bag it had stopped. It was Sam, but despite having been able to receive a call in Willowby Park I couldn’t ring him back. Once Gidon arrived I gave up trying to call Sam and decided to go and knock on his front door. As I’m knocking on the door the phone rings again and it’s Sam again asking where we are…turns out he wasn’t at home, but had very quickly got bored waiting and was already halfway to Horrabridge. We arranged to meet somewhere in between on the cyclepath. By now my hand was completely frozen from not having a glove on it and it would be a long time before it warmed up again.

As we were already heading in the Horrabridge direction (even if Sam wasn’t) we decided to try the Dwarf’s Run as it had been a while since it had been ridden and it should be good to ride as the ground was fairly dry. Dwarf’s run was indeed very rideable and someone has obviously spent some time whittling away at the large tree trunk across the path which now has a larger ‘V’ cut in it and some rocks in front which now make it ‘doable’.

At the end of the track we turned towards Doublewaters, crossed the bridge and followed the track back to Grenofen Bridge. From there we crossed the river and rode the technical track back along the river until the bottom of the zig-zag path under the Gem Bridge. From the top of this we took the route of least resistance (i.e. the cyclepath) back to HQ for the usual post ride de-brief.

Reporter: James