A tale from Mike Spencer (even the experienced forget their spares!)
Rain was forecast for all afternoon but in the end it only rained quite late, after 5pm. The scenery was wonderful as ever and the weather mostly pleasant. Guy (Rafferty) and Rob (Jordan) were great company and very tolerant! My rear gear cable snapped after 30 miles or so. We wedged the chain in one of the middle gears and clamped the cable so I could reach down to hold it in the bottom gears for climbs. This worked well until Abbotsbury hill when I released the cable towards the top of the climb (back ache) and stood on the pedals only for the chain to break, twice !!!, due to extra pressure I guess. Anyway we limped around often with Guy and Rob offering a little shelter as my legs spun faster than I ever thought they could. Thank you gentlemen! Oh and I had a puncture too!
This all pushed us to the very back of the ride and we finished in the rain and dark about 8pm. We arrived in good spirits and thanks again to Guy and Rob for sticking with me.
Highlights of the day were meeting Mrs Loakes (other half of the organiser Mr “sandles”) knitting socks at Axminster who checked us in (there were only six riders due after us) and crumble with custard in Dorchester – oh yes!
Lastly the guy who is running the new 200k in May from Romsey was selling it to us at one of the stops. Let’s see if we can do that as an IL squad and make it uneventful!
Cheers all!