Lark Ride to Longnor

Tough ride in mega wind today.

Cafe turned out to be Cobbles after all since the Craft Centre has changed hands and was closed, apparently to reopen in Feb, as a café in the day and a restaurant in the evening.

Since Cobbles was crammed with Larklings, with a reserved table awaiting some non-cyclists, the Larks (Christian, Eddie, Andrew, Stewart and me) repaired to the village shop where I was able to select a six-pack of blueberry puff pastries and a Granny Smith to accompany my much travelled Clif Bar (Alpine Muesli Mix) to make my perfectly satisfactory vegan lunch of choice, after which I enjoyed an excellent value £1.30 pot of tea with soya milk at Cobbles once the Larklings were on their way again, surprisingly quickly.

Many thanks to new-last-year members Alison and Sue for leading the new 12-strong Larkling ride.

The mother of all headwinds coming back all the way from the top of Crowdicote, up Dowel Dale through to the Cat, together with a little fog for good measure, meant that one Lark described this as the toughest ride he had done since first coming out with us in January three years ago. I clocked 50 miles at 10.1 mph. Loved it, every minute of it, although I reckon we’ve earnt a flat ride next week.

Larks meet Larklings. L to R: Mike, Alison, Christian, Stewart, Andrew, Eddie, Kirsten, Mark, Sue, Simon, Ian, Rachel, Lucia. And Brian and Phil met the Larklings in the café,