Ant's Birthday ride

Ant's Birthday ride, a photo by rOcKeTdOgUk on Flickr.

The plan was a medium length ride using canals and a tearoom, the plan didn’t go to plan, but happily for all the right reasons. There was going to be four of us then two had to drop out but at the eleventh hour Ant joined Dan and myself. This ride coincided with Ant’s 39th birthday, it also coincided with Ant attending a wedding the night before and feeling the after effects so it was just as well the ride was mostly flat apart for Wast hill and Weather oak hill (well, that was the original plan)
We met up on the towpath, negotiated the dodgy estate (early morning for safety!) rejoined the canal and turned onto the north Stratford. There we lots of other people using the route, dog walkers, runners, cyclists and for the most part everyone was happy and smiling, one walker did have a go at ant for no reason we could fathom. We made good use of the bike’s bells and resorted to shouting for those with earphones in who were blocking out the real word and the fantastic late September weather.
After turning off the canal a bit of road work brought us across earlswood reservoir and to the craft centre tearoom. The cake and tea was lovely and there were a couple of lovely views to look at, even though they seemed to be in perpetual motion, hey ant? ;-)
As it was a celebratory ride we next stopped at the coach and horses, sat in the sun and toasted ant’s 39th year.
When we got back to base Ant had other commitments bur dan and I carried on in search or more cake and a further 18 miles, this though added to the amount of hills and after sating our craving for baked goods and tea the return leg and more hills began to make its self-known in our legs, especially Dan who was riding a singlespeed.
A great ride, happy birthday to Ant, the sun shone (the wind was strong on the last bit though) and the cake was good. I even got a KOM on strava when I uploaded the route, a 0.05 mile segement that took me 17 seconds! What a hero!
ride 124
47 miles
total 2634
Sept 320
commute 1047