Veteran's Night

The celebratory TCA Burn's Night ride was accompanied by veteran cyclist Maalie whose cycling claim-to-fame was ownership in youth of a Claude Butler upon which he roamed the Essex countryside fishing and birdwatching. He arrived down from Cumbria to be greeted by the TCA co-founder, Worzel, at Headquarters in good time to meet the participating members, Matt and Jon as they arrived from work.

In deference to the veteran, a modest 14-mile road-route was selected taking us to the Hampshire Bowman in Dundridge, the home run via the White Lion, Soberton. By 6.30 pm the night was clear, calm and frosty and expectations for a pleasant ride were high. So began the extended ritual of kitting up , involving special skin-tight vests, extra thick socks, adjusting the straps of plastic helmets and the donning of fluorescent over-jackets. Matt's pink netting garment would have done justice to a lap-dancer's parlour. The follicularly challenged veteran questioned the slots in the helmets which would expose strips of his naked scalp to the freezing night air (indicated in picture below), but felt it was not the thing to point out that he anticipated strangulation by the tightness of the throat strap...

At length, with lights checked, chains oiled and toe-clips adjusted, the quartet set off into the night to explore the frosty (-4C) byways of Hampshire, with the veteran swerving wildly as he attempted to slot feet into toe clips on the move. As it happened, the ride started with the steepest hill of the course and, seeing the tail lights of the three spring chicken sprinting off up into the dark, the veteran was still trying to work out whether he should twist the handle bar grip forwards or backwards to change down through the gears. His leg muscles rapidly became metabolically anaerobic, and build-up of lactic acid obliged him to dismount and push the bike up the hill.

Thereafter, out of the consideration for the veteran, the pace was reduced and then began a most pleasant ride over the ridge-tops towards the Plough, Ursor major (a constellation, not a pub) in which, at this time of year, the pan-handle is oriented vertically down. All seemed to be going well until the vereran hit a rut and swerved violently. Applying both brakes to avoid crashing into Worzel's rear wheel, he slowed to a halt and, unable to release feet from the toe-clips quickly enough, he sort of toppled over and ended up on the tarmac. But no damage was done and the veteran was reassured that falling off the bike was in fact the initiation rite for formal membership of the TCA; Job done then.

With Jon hanging back to escort the veteran, a breathless conversation about their respective recent trips to Australia ensued. They conspired to form a splinter group and peel off at the nearest pub to continue their reminiscing in warmth and comfort, but this notion was stifled by the ride director who asserted that a scheduled stop at the Bowman was only just beyond the horizon. At length that pub was reached where welcome rest, warmth and refreshment [Stonehenge 'Spires' Ale, Ed.] of choice were enjoyed by all but Matt, who suffered in silence with an orange juice due to a New Year abstinence bet.

A toast to absent members, The Hampshire Bowman
(Left to right: Jon, Maalie, Matt, Worzel)

All too soon, the ride director ordered "Drink up" and it was back on with the helmets (frozen head syndrome alleviated by the loan of a thermal under-helmet skullcap; below, left) and flourescent jackets and out to confront the frosty night. The veteran noticed that the water in the bowl put out for dogs by the front door had frozen over... There followed an easy, largely down-hill cruise to the White Lion at Soberton where, knowing the back of the ride was broken, the stop was more relaxed. The veteran was hugely impressed by Matt's recall of historical football scores and Jon's knowledge of Australian birds.

The remaining couple of miles back to Headquarters, guided by Orion's Faithful Dog Sirius, passed with out incident, except for one last steepish hill where the veteran decided to invoke the ancient family motto Discretion is the better part of Fowler pushing the bike up the hill. In no time at all the quartet was welcomed by Strudles at H.Q. who soon had a suacepan of spaghetti bolognese bubbling on the stove.

Route Map:


(Posted by: Maalie)