Me, Alex, Phil Rounding, Ben, Sky John, Young John, Spinner, Metal Mike, Geoff and Dave Hirst turned out today for a fantastic ride. 87 miles at at average of 16.3 is pretty good for this time of year, and despite the promise of a flat route, this wasn’t flat at all. We went out towards Sheffield and Barnsley and then cut across to Tickhill, riding on some “rolling terrain”. Some of the uphill sections were pretty testing. By the time we got to the cafe we had ridden 46 miles. The cafe was superb - the service was first class and the staff were very friendly.

The way back was through Doncaster and Wakefield and over the nasty little Horbury drag, which everybody seemed to ride with ease.

Ben was very strong today - I wasn’t too far behind him. Dave rode well too, as indeed did everybody. We all had our strong episodes. The best part of today was the fact that ten of us set off and we all returned together. It was tough at times. We often had mad moments of 30mph on the flat, testing each other, hammering it up some of the hills, but it was done in  good spirits and nobody seemed to “take the hump”.

This was a great route, and it should be a regular one, in my view. Maybe it helped that the weather was good; maybe the banter at Sky John’s expense, and Ben’s when he had his mechanical, helped too - but I can honestly say that cycling doesn’t get much better than today.