Vale of Velo sportive

Some Guys have all the LUCK and some Girls well they just don’t! The Vale Velo Sportive Sat 1st April (April Fool’s day…. Just ask the cleat expert Josh!) This is a tale mostly about two girls…….. read on…… Myself Jack, Keith or is it Martin Cox, Jo and Katie departed from Kingswood (The home of road cycling in HULL!) Same as the shakedown 1 Van 1 car but no Smithy, we were meeting Manners there, De Ja Vous or what? You won’t believe this, we didn’t! Pulls out of M Weighton who is in front of us but Manners, in guess what? A Blue Merc!!!!! We messaged Jack Regan immediately: response from Smithy, “told you it was blue!” Good job he wasn’t with us! We arrive safe and sound, Katie a bit nervous, she’d been the loo a couple of times before she set off from home, then at Jos, twice at the start, WHAT? She did have reasons to be nervous though, her brakes were a bit iffy, chain set the same, difficulty getting into her (got to be careful with words here Kamil) small or Granny ring, Jack checked it over, “take it easy should be OK” Plan was to stick together, steady start, get the hill out the way, then crank the pace up a bit to suit everyone, I fell over trying to set my strava, looked up they’d gone! Jo was clearly on a mission with Manners in hot pursuit, that’s the last I saw of them two until the finish. So me Katie Keith Jack and an old friend of ours “DC” went at our steady pace towards Stamford Bridge, Pocklington and the Baulk, the long hill we had practised in our shake down, making sense now? There is a method to this madness! We lost Keith and Jack, so the three of us plodded on, told Katy to get into her small ring which she was having difficulty with, then 1st PUNCTURE of the day, poor Katie, we stopped and with all my Cliff Pratt training me and DC changed tubes, who tipped up but Keith and Jack, got lost, how on Earth do you get lost on a Sportive? Best bit Keith had done the shakedown 2 weeks earlier. Guess what Katieneeded to go toilet! Got some pictures of her straddling a gate, there were some “bird spotters” in the area taking pictures; apparently she is appearing next week’s “NATURIST WEEKLY” not heard of it myself but very popular, no I can’t go there, but use your imagination, Kamil will not print any of this! FIXED we set off Jack and Keith into the distance towards Garroby, the three of us nice cadence to the top, I’ve got to say it was fairly uneventful from there, we all met briefly again at the Feed Station, NOT JO AND MANNERS, they’d gone. We set off again and Lady UNLUCK struck again for Katie, unbelievable, another puncture, this time she lost her temper with her bike had a John Cleese, Fawlty Towers moment, threatened to ground the bike forever, fortunately she was helped again, and was on her way. A quick cruise back to be greeted by Jo doing an excellent impression of a Cheshire cat, grinning and laughing, she had absolutely smashed it! Top ten Strava times all over the hockey, to think of the traumas she went through at the beginning of the year, what an achievement none of it possible without the help of this wonderful character filled club we are all proud to be part of, plus a massive amount of grit and determination. WOW it was over, medals T Shirts, energy bars etc, and we departed straight to the Pub, which was nice!