On Saturday 15th November Matt Johnson, Neil Dean, Amanda Dean, Andy Carroll, Shaun Nicholson, Rich Guymer, and Mike McAllister turned out for another end-of-season road skills session.

 

One notable omission from today’s ride was HTRC RR Secretary Mark Walker, who has been a stalwart and organiser of these sessions over the last couple of years.

 

A chest infection I hear. We hope you get well soon, Mark, and enjoy the rest.

 

 

Today’s conditions are cold (around 7 degrees Celsius), light winds and lots of mist and fog – pretty eerie. A quick discussion about the route and Neil soon rises to Captain for the day, a 9.30ish start and off we go.

 

A steady ride along Eppleworth two abreast and catching up on the week’s news, I was at the Robert Plant gig at City Hall the night before, and how good was ‘Whole (or maybe Hull) Lotta Love’? It was fab seeing true Rock Royalty in the town… However, I digress, now back to the ride.

 

I love riding in foggy conditions as the light brings out the autumnal tints on the turning trees and hedgerows, marvellous.

 

Pylon wires magically disappear into these land lying clouds, familiar lanes become unfamiliar and condensation on my eyelashes is making everything fuzzy, a couple of blinks later, vision restored.

 

 

We soon reach Weedley, the masts looking like giant spindly creatures, a little surreal.
We’ve a bit of fun coming up after the steady grind to Weedley, the descent into South Cave. On the descent we hit our max speed for the day, the surface being pretty decent and improving light has us all flying.

We head to North Cave, now in clear conditions, Amanda competing in the Sunday Girls v West Hull Ladies Running Club TT heads home to prepare for the event.

The pace ups a little as we head along Cliffe Road to Market Weighton but everyone’s comfortable and when we get to Market Weighton we have to take a comfort break as someone (Andy) has been busting since Skidby!

Rich leaves us in Market Weighton, to head on for a longer ride, but us mere mortals stick to our 40 miler and head back, taking in Goodmanham Hill.

No records are broken but the fog’s back and pretty thick it is too.

The route back is nice and steady unfortunately no ‘Through And Off’ today, just ‘Chin And Wag’ where we talk about numbers of miles ridden in the week, ZHRs, RHRs, Bianchi bikes, and the HTRC RR team kit. We’re soon back at Little Weighton where I split off for lunch with my better half at Folly Cafe (scrambled egg, beans on toast – yum).

A nice steady ride with a great bunch, roll on next week and I hope you like the pics.

Photos from Road Race Training Ride #4 by the author

Mike McAllister