Author Archives: BackSeatRider

Our ride started early, with about 25K to put in to get to Connor Downs for 9 o’clock. We were pleased with progress after several weeks off the tandem and with the captain still in recovery from LEL, and arrived in good time for once to find the hall buzzing in anticipation of a good ride and a sunny day.

The long hill out of Connor Downs to the A30 crossing is reasonably tandem-friendly and all was going along very cheerily until what would normally be an easy front mech change turned into a nasty snarl up and a fight with a greasy chain. This, luckily, is men’s work – the Butlers stopped to lend a hand and eventually we were back in business and pushing hard to catch the field at the Coombe checkpoint. A bit of faffing here and a couple of poorly coordinated starts saw us off the back again, and we enjoyed most of the rest of the ride in glorious isolation and at a very modest pace. Continue reading →