Riders :- Sinbad & Mr Shea

As I had a semi free pass for the weekend, I decided to fit in some yakking on the Sat night and a ride on Sunday, with the offer of Mr Shea to join me we decided to have a little pootle and a pub stop.

Seamus arrived at mine just before 13:00 and the sun was cracking the flags. We decided to head out towards Conrhenny via honey hill so I could show Seamus the work completed on the Saturday morning. Honey hill was a nice climb to get the legs going especially with DUST!!! After the climb we headed over to the shelter of Conrhenny and took a quick lap round the new bridges, bumping in to “Team Fit4Hire” out scouting the course and planning their rest stop and refuelling strategies.

Pushing on as the LA was calling we shot off down the big hill and in to the large puddle…. OMG, a tidal wave of warm stagnant water, yum yum. Due to possible ingestion of said stagnant water we thought it prudent to head straight down Barroose and to the LA to water down the effects with some medical alcohol, namely a pint of Black Sheep and a Spitfire. An all too brief rest stop was then followed by the Groudle Glen rd; round to the Majestic Path, which it turns out Seamus hadn’t ridden before. Here Seamus once again made the fatal error of trying to mount from the downhill side on an uphill slope, unfortunately neither I nor the camera witnessed the outcome, which delayed Seamus for a few minutes. I then decided to inspect the undergrowth myself, all satisfactory, will put a vid up on LL YouTube soon!.

After the majestic we took a saunter along the prom…. warm weather, need I say more! After several close calls the plan evolved in to a climb up Douglas Head, Marine Dr and Oakhill all which were pretty uneventful, except for the total lack of mud on Oakhill and a river crossing that was more of a trickle, the amount of dust on the bikes was quite unnerving. At the end of Oakhill we both realised that camelbaks and water bottles were empty, so a detour to Gary’s was in order, needless to say he was out but his tap was still working. Now on to the last descent of the day, Ballacotch, again very dusty and dangerous, with Seamus offering up several large rocks as offering to the crash gods. By this time the scent of the Railway was in out nostrils so I quick ride along the tracks led us to a Jorvik and a Loxley and admiring glances from the Landlord, he likes the new LL Kit…maybe sponsor a top for him?

Here we parted our ways, I headed back up towards the hospital then in to Millennium wood and Johnny Watterson’s lane to home, whilst Seamus went bap hunting and nervously headed home to face another telling off from Holly!

Sinbad