Team Efog cycling on a dreary day - 31st Oct 2010

Despite the weather not looking very promising five hardy souls (Duncan, Ann, Jill, Ralph and myself Val) turned out for Ann’s cycle ride starting from the car park of The Garden Centre near the M11 roundabout in Harlow.

Although there was a light drizzle in the air the first few hours we spent pleasantly cycling along the pretty autumnal lanes in the local area, taking in various Matchings and Lavers towards Hatfield Forest where we planned to have our lunch break by the lake.

Lunch achieved sitting under the trees to keep out of the rain a bit we started our journey back promising ourselves a nice hot cup of tea back at the garden centre where we had parked the cars.

Not too long had passed when Jill and Ralph disappeared from the back of the group – a bit of back tracking finds Ralph repairing a puncture to Jill’s bike. Job done and we think on our way again. Not 5 minutes had passed when they disappeared again – more back tracking finds Ralph repairing a second puncture to Jill’s bike, this time it needs a new inner tube and tyre which Ann and Duncan just happen to have along with everything else in their bottomless panniers, so off we go again.

By this time with the clocks having gone back an hour overnight daylight begins to wane a little earlier and we are thinking we need to get our acts together and do some serious pedalling. Very little distance had been achieved when my bike went on strike and succumbed to yes you guessed it, a puncture. Now I am thinking smugly that I do not have a problem because my off road bike has these thick tyres filled with the dreaded ‘green slime’ which self repairs as the air rushes out – the thing being  I did not fill my panniers as Ann & Duncan do and I did not have a pump with me – Ralph came up trumps with a very small pump that managed somehow to get a little air in the tyre but doing so nearly gave Duncan heart failure with the effort required to achieve it. At a crossroads trying to read the map in fast diminishing light we set off again and somehow Jill and Ralph end up in an unceremonious heap in the road and Jill has hurt her knees, don’t ask how it happened, it just did.

Now we know we are definitely not going to get that hot cup of tea but are also in danger of not getting back to the garden centre in time before they lock our cars in their car park at 4.30 and go home for the night. I am struggling at the rear with a half inflated tyre on an off-road bike which seems to weigh a ton so we send Duncan and Ralph off at pace to at least get the cars out of the car park so we can get home. Jill, Ann and me then carried on at my reduced pace comforted by the thought that we would actually be able to get home.

We arrived at the garden centre at 4.25 just in the nick of time and found Duncan & Ralph anxiously waiting for us. I felt that I had run and carried my bike this last 5 miles and was a little worse for wear as was Jill with her rapidly stiffening knees. But team Efog rules supreme, we had beaten everything in the course of the day and there is another cycle ride on the programme in a few weeks and yes we will be going (and I will remember to take a pump).

Thanks Ann for a great days cycling – nearly 31 miles - we would still have been out there now if I had been reading that map.

Val