Turn, Turn, up, down,2nd exit out of the Roundabout

Dale does a club run on Saturdays and I go on Sundays. I have ridden with two different clubs, St. Ives Cycling Club and the Cambridge Cycling Club. Both clubs run a different route each week. The St. Ives club boasts over 28 different routes. I get a detailed route sheet from the St. Ives club every Thursday describing the club run for that Sunday. The Cambridge Club publishes the place where they will have their tea stop on their website. All clubs have tea stops a little more than halfway through the ride. We stop and people have tea and cakes, rolls, beans on toast, or coffee and scones. Then everyone climbs back on their bikes and rides as hard as they can home. The tea stops make the bike outing a long one. Usually we will leave the house before 9:00am and return after 2:00pm depending on how many punctures there were within the group.

For each route I study the possible routes. I look at Google Earth. I look at maps. I look at road names and town names. I keep thinking that one day I am going to know where I am once we depart for our ride. I never do. Once I clip in and have been pedaling for five minutes, we have usually made at LEAST three turns and gone through one roundabout.

The roads are not in a grid here. You have to go north to go south. The roundabouts usually have three possible exits, but I have seen as many as five. Every village has several roundabouts. You go through a lot of little villages and they all have a pub, a church that looks like it is over 100 years old, and a pond. The roads we ride on are sometimes the width of a narrow driveway. They are usually covered with a thin coat of mud and all the considerate participants have mud guards on their bikes. It made me pause the first time I saw mud guards (fenders) on a Colnago, but it became instantly clear within the first mile.

The club runs are divided up into several smaller groups based on speed and distance. The groups range from 8 to 15 riders. The reason for this is you cannot squeeze many more riders through some of the streets. Very often the groups have to squeeze down to single file due to cars rushing at you at high speed. The rides so far have been between 55 and 75 miles. I usually am ready to dismount around the 50 mile mark, but since I am usually lost I have no choice but to hang on. Nothing like a little incentive to finish the ride and hang with the group.