Nine seek the Solstice Sun

by Paul Rogers

Nine hardy souls gathered at the school layby for the 7.20am start, leaving us an hour to ride through Brockton to the Bury Ditches car park and then on foot to the summit. As is nearly always the case, the sun failed to appear due to thick cloud, but a good time was had by all celebrating the shortest day - hooray, summer is on the way! Trevor had braved shorts for the cool morning and headed home whilst the rest of us shot down to Clunton for a few pre-breakfast miles. Numbers swelled at the Poppy House for a big fry up to end what had been an excellent morning.

Feast at the Green

by Paul Rogers

Once again, Liz took the helm and organised a sociable pre-Christmas ride to the Inn on the Green for a fabulous group lunch (many thanks Liz). Some rode their bikes, some walked, and a few even arrived by car (no names, but I blame Andrew for accepting a lift from us earlier in the day

when it was raining heavily, neither he nor I having taken any notice of the weather forecast...) A brilliant carvery meal, with the biggest plateful probably going to Huw, although closely followed by several others who had eyes bigger than their bellies. Good to see you all. Happy Christmas!

Stiperstones

By Paul Rogers

Our final Wednesday meet of 2017 took 8 of us to the Stiperstones Inn, arriving from various directions within the space of a few minutes. John, Huw and I took a 34 mile route, storming down the B road from Chirbury towards Shrewsbury, only to find when we turned South that perhaps our new found form was something to do with the wind direction! The music selection in the bar was Christmas based, as to be expected, although perhaps from one of those CDs that would have been better left at the bottom of the pile. Much humming and even the occasional break out into full song did occur, so it was perhaps fortunate that we had the bar mostly to ourselves!

Writing this a week later, it is difficult to comprehend what has been and gone, with 10" of snow at the weekend and BC in a virtual lock down. Christmas dinner ride to the Inn on the Green next Sunday (17th), followed by our regular Winter Solstice visit to the top of Bury Ditches to hopefully see the sunrise (21st).

Stiperstones Inn

Snows at the weekend