Cyclists Touring Club
Newark On Trent Group
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NEWARK NOTES from the Secretary
February 2009 Cracked bones and mussel-shells The year had hardly begun when things started to go pear-shaped. On the very first Saturday ride of the year, Neil fell off his bike, and although he got back on and rode home, he realised that something was wrong. A visit to hospital revealed that he had ridden home with a cracked pelvis. Although he should be well on the way to recovery by the time you read this, he’s understandably taking it easy for the time being. Other than that, January ran its usual course with dull and windy weather, short rides and us hoping for better times. Last year, I wrote that we’d visited Woodhall Spa in February, albeit not on the first weekend, and found it warm enough to sit outside at the cafe for our lunch stop. Well, we went there on February 1st this year, and enjoyed, if that’s the right word for it, light flurries of snow. Coming into Kirkstead Bridge along the Water Rail Way path, Steve got a puncture, so we sheltered under the bridge while repairing it. While we were carrying out the repair, a passer- by told us that the local birds had been catching mussels in the Witham, which runs alongside, and using the tarmac as an anvil to smash the shells on. Said shells were then ending up in people’s tyres, where they were not welcome. As it happened, Steve’s puncture had been caused by a flint, so I’m not sure if the guy was having us on. Are there mussels in the Witham? Either way, I’ll be keeping a look-out next time I use that path! Sheltering under the bridge turned out to be a good move, as when I looked away from the bikes, I saw snow falling in a fair blizzard. By the time we’d finished, the shower had more or less passed over, but we were to encounter several more similar showers before we got home. Fortunately, one of the points of going out the way we had was to ensure a tail wind for the journey home, and for the most part that, at least, did not disappoint. Most of you will recall that the following week we had our first heavy snowfall for several years, though thankfully, not as heavy as experienced by some parts of the country. The P-word featured on a Saturday ride later in the month, when we went to Sherwood Pines, and I got that sinking feeling shortly before our café stop. I pushed to the café, and, after a hastily drunk coffee, fitted a new tube, with a little help from my friends. Returning via Rufford and the A616, we found the main road much quieter than normal, but approaching Kneesall, we found the reason. An abnormal load transporter, on its way to the Power Station site at Staythorpe, was stopped in the road, leaving no room for cars to pass. We’d joined from a minor road and had presumably missed the police roadblock. Fortunately, there was room for us to get by, and we saw that the reason the truck had stopped was that one of the wheels on the multi-axled bogies that these vehicles use had, yes, a puncture. The crew were using rather larger tyre levers than I had done for my bike, and we got the impression that the operation was taking rather longer than the 15 minutes or so that my repair took. Sometimes small is beautiful, even if a Carradice Longflap doesn’t have quite the same carrying capacity!
Mike Graham Page updated 28/02/09 |