Sunday 5 June – Mooney

Well, it would have to be said that this was not our finest hour! Photos here.

We failed to meet the 6ft drop boys (see last entry – have you got a better reference to your website, dudes?) at the start of the ride at 7.45am (we're actually closer to 8am, for future reference! We did actually see the lads up at the water towers some hours later). Before leaving the start, we buggered about setting up pedals for Ed on the loaner bike from Richard (and so on, and so on). Finally got underway, and things began looking good. Brian on form (as ever). Mark turned out to be another of those legends who rode in on a Learsport (borrowed from Dad) with sandshoes - then went up (and down) everything we put in front of him.

Doug was quietly confident that we’d actually make it to the bucket and have fun… (lost the group photo at the beginning, Doug?).

Early signs of impending doom started with Ed demonstrating the good old chain suck for which Richard's old bike is famous (despite the huuuuge service I recently gave it). Things went worse when we broke Mark’s derailleur on the climb up from the small dam. He just wasn’t the same after that (which may, of course, also have had something to do with the 3kg lunch he had packed for him!). Then, when we finally looked like we might get going - down the track from the water tanks to the big dam, on the way to “the bucket”, Ed managed to turn Richard’s rear wheel into origami.

We spent the statutory 45 minutes trying to get it back into shape (congrats to Hep, for the days best idea of jumping up and down on it!), and then sadly crawled back up the hill to the water towers. Mark entertained us with (even more food, and) some cute front wheel wheelies, Brian and Stephe fell off the back of the bike trying standard wheelies, and then we meandered off home (although it wasn’t without its amusements!).

So, no great report, no great ride. Even with all this, the downhill was still a blast. Hmmm, better luck next week…

Some samples from the day: