As club runs go, this was something of an epic for all the wrong reasons. Six of us turned up at Skidby (Mark Walker, Andy Carroll, Will Thomas, Rich Guymer, Shaun Nicholson and Matthew Johnson) under horrible black skies and a light drizzle.

 

Before we’d even started Rich noticed he had a flat tyre and my gears weren’t working – an omen of what was to come perhaps. So we headed back to Rich’s so he could get a replacement wheel, whilst I started to fiddle about with my gears. My frustration began to show as I couldn’t get the rear derailleur in sync for any of the gears to work. After a few choice words I’d finally got somewhere, it wasn’t perfect, but I had some working gears. Rich was ready too with his spare wheel, so we then headed back out of Skidby and on towards Beverley.

 

The wind at this point was starting to strengthen and we were soon hitting speeds of 30 mph on the main road. By Beverley I was soaked through and my mood was darkening with the weather. I powered away after Molescroft trying to rid my anger from the previous events by taking it out on my pedals (maybe I need anger management classes?). I eventually calmed down at Cherry Burton, aware that no good would come of me just riding away in a huff, that does you no favours.

 

Andy and Will started to up the pace beyond Lockington and we were starting to reach speeds of 25 mph up some of the slight drags. I kind of realised at this point that it was going to be a hard ride home.

 

After Bracken farm, and a quick toilet stop, we headed up to Kirkburn when I started to encounter a strange ticking sound on what I thought was the front wheel. I stopped to take a look but no problem with the front, so it must be the back I thought. I’d been having trouble with my rear mudguard for the past few weeks, as it constantly comes out of place but no, no problem with that either. So I decided to carry on and the problem, or rather the noise, went away. After Kirkburn we started to head east towards Driffield where a strong crosswind was upon us. I was at the back for this part having had to chase back on after my earlier stop. Suddenly my back wheel started to feel like it was on ice and was skating around from side to side. I eased up, looked down and noticed I had a puncture. At this point the other five where quite a bit up the road so my cries for help went unanswered as they couldn’t hear me.

 

Great, just great I said. It’s teaming down with rain, I’m miles from home and I have a puncture with fingers so cold they felt like 10 bits of wood, struggling to gather any kind of feel. So I had two options, try and fix the puncture or ring home – the cowards choice. I took the cowards choice. However with all the rain the touchscreen on my phone wasn’t functioning properly, so I couldn’t call home. OK – option two it is. I then took out the inner tube went to take the cap off the valve to find half of the valve stuck in the cap. Not a problem, all I have to do is screw the tip of the valve out of the cap. That was easier said than done. By this point I was shivering uncontrollably and my hands weren’t functioning properly. The problem I had was that similar to trying to turn a smooth tap on with soapy water, I just couldn’t get the grip to screw the damn thing out. I was getting worried too, as only yesterday Jim Sampson told me of how Keith Carter caught pneumonia by staying out in the wet for too long.

 

So there I was, no option to ring home and a unworkable inner tube, great, just bloody great. However, as luck should have it, I found a rubber glove in the back of my saddle bag which gave me the grip necessary to take the valve apart. We now had some progress as I managed to prise apart the valve and put it where it should be and then place the inner tube in the tyre and put it altogether. Using my new Topeak race rocket pump (highly recommended) and I was up and running in no time. I was still shivering beyond belief which meant I was too tense to put any pressure on the pedals.

 

Fortunately I was closer to Driffield than I thought and the Bell Mills Café was in sight. I was a little worried that the others had been and gone, as I had lost all track of time. Turned out it was only 20 minutes and fortunately for me I could see five bikes lent against the wall, ‘phew they’re still here’ I thought.  I got into the café and was a little out of order…

 

‘Cheers for waiting for me, lads!  Don’t ever do that again’ I said. It wasn’t my finest speech but my issue was with the circumstances that had struck me not them and I was looking for someone to take it out on. It was completely unfair to blame them for what happened as they clearly weren’t aware I’d punctured, so I do apologise for that.

 

Rich was a true gent as he could see the state I was in and got me a nice warm drink and beans and toast. After about ten minutes I could just about control the shivering to take a sip of my drink and get some grub in my mouth and I started to warm up.

 

After about a half hour we decided to get a move on and head home. Yet that thought kind of changed when we got to the entrance and we saw it lashing down, much worse than what we had when we got to the café. We could even see bits of snow in the sky. So all 6 of us started to contemplate what to do next. ‘Well I’m not going out there’ I said. Matthew backed me up by requesting that we stay in the café for another half an hour to see if it would blow over. Will called home and Andy called us wimps. This lasted about 20 minutes before we actually moved from the entrance of the café.

 

So we all headed back into the elements, I took an age to get going as my glove had shrunk with all the water but we eventually got going. The wind was now well and truly in our faces and I feared about the ride home. In truth we weren’t that far away, as we took the most direct route back, trying to dodge puddles and keep away from cars at the same time. We ended up going through Watton, Beswick and Leconfield before we got to Beverley where Matt, who kindly offered for us to refresh at his house, headed off. We decided against stopping, being so close to home, so as to avoid the situation of having to reheat then face the elements once again. A bit like getting in and out of a cold swimming pool, once you’re in you’re fine but acclimatising yourself to the temperature at first takes some doing.

 

Andy also headed off at Beverley so that left the four of us to ride home. Intervals and all that had gone out of the window for today, this was about survival and getting home in one piece. Which we did, eventually, meaning we covered 47 miles at an average of just 16 mph, although I didn’t really care about that by the time I got home a warm shower was all that was on my mind.

 

So a few things to conclude from today’s ride. Always take a rubber glove with you, make sure you’re not on your own when you puncture, and even better, don’t go out when it’s one degree, there’s gale force winds and it’s raining heavily. I hate winter.

 

Mark Walker
HTRC Road Race Secretary