It’s just as well we have people within the Moos who have the ability to step into the breech when circumstances dictate, so for that reason Scrippsy and Ryan the Dream must be commended for organising a cracking ride in the absence of our wayward Captain. The years may have been very unkind to the Scrippsmeister but he managed to liaise quite admirably with Ross Porter and let the Goons know where to meet us etc. and when he was not sleeping or drinking tea The Steam led the boys on a superb ride and in the process treating the visiting Paragoons to a feast of top trail riding with some tricky singletrack , which led to Ross explaining to Martyn Ashfield “Christ, I think their trying to bloody kill us!!!!!”

With a few notable absentees there was still however a good turnout and although apparently some of the Goons had been struck down last minute with a severe case of Machenitis Mad Moo Deficiency Syndrome, six hardy souls managed to make the short journey over the dividing mountain

With Martyn Ashfield riding for the Goons and our very own elder statesman Scrippsy also riding they managed to push the average age of riders for last nights ride up to 74!! But fair play for Martyn he once again showed that he is a committed team player by deliberately riding at the back all night to make sure that none of the flock were left behind, and then when they were at the top he unselfishly deprived himself of a scintillating last downhill in order to get to HQ first so that he could make sure that it would be suitable for his boys. Well done that man!!

Once safely ensconced back at The Royal Oak the boys were treated once again to a lovely spread from Gill and Chris the chef, and everyone was generally having a laugh. With June’s monthly awards postponed to this week it was now time to do the presentation. Crock being the present incumbent of the ‘Unorthodox Behaviour Award’ he decided that my bone cracking tumble of a few weeks ago was enough for me to secure the award, obviously I didn’t agree with this and to add insult to injury Dickie decided to choose Tom as rider of the month who was of course instrumental in causing my accident!!! With Ryan the Steam’s birthday and also Dai Shops birthday there was plenty of beer being consumed!

It was actually the first time that Dai Shop had stayed out drinking with the rest of the Moos as he was staying with Ryan the Steam for the night, and all I can say is that I hope his shop keeping skills are far better than his drinking skills because he was actually in the same league as the Moos other infamous drinking ‘legend’ Beaker Wherlock , we just hope that Dai doesn’t turn into the ranting foul mouthed monster that seems to take over Beaker when he has a drop on!!!

There was also a welcome return to Wednesday night action for that downhilling maestro Jock after a couple of months absence, and also Dai Eye was riding for the first time since his eye watering operation of a couple of weeks ago, Scrippsy now wants to change his nickname to Dai No Nuts!

With everybody loosening up after a couple of drinks, I managed to find out who had stolen Scrippsy’s wheels last week, so without mentioning names all I can tell you is that one has a long face, can’t drink, and has just penned a book entitled “101 great swear words to use in company’ and the other has wispy ginger hair, skinny legs, and is fantastic at organising! Scrippsy over to you!!

Even though everybody was having a good time there was no repeat of the singing that accompanied us 2 weeks ago, there was rumours that Scrippsy was going to sing another naked song for us and was going to treat us to a rendition of Neil Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’ perhaps with his antics of a few weeks ago he should be known as ‘The Jizz Singer!!’

With guest rider Denzil from California joining us next week a few of the boys were enquiring what he was like, Scrippsy duly obliged and basically said ‘Don’t get into a conversation with him at the bar because he’ll bore you to death, but he’s loaded and should be good for a few free beers!!!’

It was still relatively early when the Goons decided to leave, this was mainly due to the fact that they had run out of money and couldn’t rely on Curly to bail them out with his winnings this week!! Johnny Boy seemed to have enjoyed himself, so much so that he stated that he was going to visit us a lot more, apparently the fact that there are no canals in Machen was a huge factor in Johnny’s decision!

But special thanks must go to Martyn, Ross, John, Anthony, Curly, Pete and Harry for making the effort and joining us for the ride.

Hopefully the Captain will return next week from gallivanting in France and start showing a bit more commitment to the Moos, although before he left he did manage to finally get the rest of the pictures from the Clic24 which are now in the photo gallery.