First group ride of 2013!!!!!!

What a fantastic turnout for a long winter ride straight after Christmas!! Robbo and Baby arrived at the Whitehurst rendezvous point, to be shortly joined by Cabbage, Patron, Chrissy, Mark, Brownie, Vino, Candle, Craig and Ronnie. Designated target for the day was Bala, and the Crapi convoy rolled along the A5 at a brisk but leisurely pace. We then battled into a headwind at Corwen, having lost the shelter of the Dee valley, which signalled the gradual dimming of the Candle's hitherto impressive wick. The inevitable splintering of the pack occurred on the long straight after the Rug cafe, as Le Patron gallantly dropped back to shepherd the ailing Candle. The lead group trundled along at a respectable pace to Bethel, when Craig decided to have a go at time trialling off the front of the pack to Bala. "I'm having some of that" (or words to that effect) exclaimed Mark, and shot after Craig as if Chris had slipped a leftover New Years firework up his jacksie. He proceeded to immediately ride straight over the top of Craig, and that was the last we saw of him until Bala, where we found the strange combination of a trembling man who had clearly gone too deep, but strangely still had more gas left in the tank! He later admitted his whole body was pulsing as he climbed off his orange steed to wait for us. The return leg was carnage. Yes we took it steady and stayed together to the top of the drag at Bethel, but then it was every man for himself as the speed rose from 27 - 35mph, and that was on the flat! Between Corwen and Llan a breakaway group consisting of Robbo, Chrissy, Ronnie, Mark and Baby got their heads down and headed for home. To be fair Le Patron was also in the group, but as usual, gallantry got the better of him and he dropped back to check on the rest of the bunch. Weaknesses began to show on Butterfly hill but some sort of invisible Crapi glue kept it all together. Meanwhile further back down the road, Cabbage was rear-ended by a 'distracted' motorist and inadvertently pulled a wheelie which then brought Brownie crashing down too! Thankfully both riders and their machines were relatively unscathed but it could have been so much worse. I mean, how difficult could it have been for the driver not to have seen Cabbage and Brownie on the road in front - they were wearing bright red and blue tops for Pete's sake! Herein lies a lesson to drivers -do keep your eyes on the road and not on your phone, stereo, fags or whatever else you're fannying about with when you're supposed to be concentrating!

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