San Fairy Ann Cycle Club

Trying to think of a cafe that the B Group have not visited recently I decided to take them to the fish farm cafe at Hawkhurst. It was last night before I finally made up my mind so no time to check that they were open and could take us. Last week we had 20 out so I was almost relieved to find only 10 today.

We had 2 new riders, Andy and Gary who have just swapped their mountain bikes for road bikes. They might have regretted this when we took the track alongside Bedgebury but at that stage we remained puncture free.

Arriving at the cafe we found the grass by the car park covered with bikes and nearly all the outside tables occupied by 28 members of the 9.00am Intermediate group. Fortunately they had all been served there and wasn't a long queue at the counter so we didn't have too long to wait.

Just as we had all been served in came the A group, followed soon afterwards by the Fast Intermediates. Apparently they had started out together, the A groupies promising to treat it as a steady recovery ride.

Health Warning - do not be taken in by such promises - or is an average of 18.7mph over 35 hilly miles just a steady a recovery ride? Just hold that form for another 4 weeks and we will have lots of 4 point rides towards retaining the KCA Reliablity Trial trophy.

Ron
Apologies if we caused a bottleneck but as we are looking now for stops 10-15 miles from home we have less choice and with such a beautiful day it seemed a natural choice.
A couple of points ,I am not sure who transmitted the data to you but we did 40.5 miles to the stop over a fairly flat route,
Tenterden-Wittersham- Rolvenden- Benenden- Sandhurst -Fish Farm with the group of A/Fast inters mixed up -with many of the inters pushing the pace and young Dave Law sprinting away up the hills waiting for us slower ones to plod on up.
We had the usual decorum of waiting at the junctions for any regrouping needed. And the repeating comment as we all stood in the slow queue at Fish place was 'that was fun -good ride ' with no gripes and then on the return Cliff took an alternative route back with those who wanted to do a longer return. All in all a good ride i think.So no broken promises really.
Simon

Just to point out that the Fast Inters (some of us anyway) actually got to the Café before the A's, on account of taking a Cliff-shortcut! It worked a treat – it got us to the front of the queue!

For most I think this ride worked out well (though frankly on a day like yesterday one could have been out with any group and enjoyed it, the weather was so perfect). However, I gather at least a couple of perfectly strong riders (maybe one who was a newcomer?) to dropped out around Tenterden, the pace was too much, perhaps it's to be expected, but it's not ideal!

I'd guess the ride was a little off current 'A' group pace, faster than the recent Fat Inters' rides.

What I did like was the later café stop (more of a ride before a rest) and splitting up and going back to Marden at a leisurely pace with Cliff etc. I always struggle getting back into it after lunch and this was the perfect remedy.

Perhaps a more flexible approach to how rides split is a way forward to keeping a mixed group all happy together? It was certainly good fun to all be at the same café stop.

A small band (8) of intermediates had a great ride (and a couple of big climbs) out to penshurst. Wondered where everyone was! Also got 2 names for the 100m reliability trial so well worth the effort! (Mind you, as they were Kate and I we could have stayed at home!)

Simon, no criticism intended and certainly don't apologise to me for being part of the bottleneck at the cafe. I'm sure the cafe appreciated the trade - and we could have all arrived at the same time to make it a bit more hectic for them!

This isn't the first time that 3 groups have ended up at the same place but trying to avoid these very infrequent occurrences would be an administrative nightmare.

Especially as half the leaders only pretend they know where they are going and are often surprised where they end up. Panic begins to set in as they digest their lunch and begin to consider how the hell to get back to Marden!

Only half??????

Hi Ron,

When is your deadline for the reliability trial? Need to check my diary and also look at which distance! Not sure if I have missed it!

Hi Caroline,

Full details on this forum under Reliability Trials. PM or e-mail me by tomorrow evening if you want to enter.