It was the last ride before the Clic24, and we had a commendable turnout of 15 riders. The ride was being taken by Dickie, but we were kept waiting by him, with his excuse being that he was washing and ironing his wife’s summer dresses in preparation for the sunny weekend! It was also a welcome return for Johnny ‘Mechanic’ Wright, who for once had managed to point his nose toward the Legion and join us for a ride.

The ascent of Turners Lane was the beginning of Dickies ride, although I say ‘Dickies’ ride, it was probably Ryan the Dreams ride, because as was evident in Dickies lethargic preparation, he could be heard constantly saying “Which way do you think we should go next Ant?” Dickie, you have lived in this area all your life and have eaten enough mint choc chip ice creams to know which tracks to lead the boys on a ride, next time I hope your preparation may be a little more thorough as you may not have ‘The Dream’ to help you out!!!!!!

Having said this though, we did enjoy a good paced ride which eventually took us over to Rudry Mountain, it was here that the curse of the Mechanic struck once more. After surprising the rest of the Moos with his good showing up Turners Lane, Johnny Mechanic soon lapsed back into his old habits, from a lack of basic maintenance, Johnnies chain snapped, again… and it was left to The Captain and Harty to fix it for him. But by the way that Johnnie just stood there hands on hips looking deeply perplexed it is quite evident that WHEN this happens again, Johnnie will AGAIN be looking for inspiration from his team-mates to rectify the situation!!
Wednesday also saw two contenders put their hands up for ‘Crasher of the Year’ because as we descended Rudry Mountain Chrissie and Harty both had spectacular ‘offs’ which resulted in both their bikes being somersaulted about 30ft from where they crashed and in Harty’s case smashing his brand new helmet, for this reason alone I think he just edges it over Chrissie and now looks favourite to win the title that he first won back in 2003!!

With it turning in to a lovely spring evening it was time for refreshments, so after a few weeks absence it was back to the Maenllwyd, this is where The Dream peeled off to start another sleeping shift and Scrippsy also did a quick disappearing act, again complaining about his ‘bad chest’! With the nights getting lighter it was the first time that we didn’t take our lights, but by the time we had all indulged in a swift shandy, the night was drawing in and it was decided that we should make the dash home to HQ. Once again The Captain had an ‘early bath’ by leaving his flock again and not fulfilling his Captains duties, for all the faults of last years Captain Scrippsy, of which there are many, I cannot once recall him neglecting his duties the way that this years Captain does!!!
Beaker Wherlock also showed this week that apart from becoming ‘Timmy Tourettes’ after a couple of beers he also turns into ‘Dennis the Menace’ as was seen constantly dropping two pence pieces into everybody’s pints.
Scrippsy reappeared resplendently decked out in his mustard ‘Pringle’ jumper and bowling shoes and proceeded to show us that he had indeed been ill over the last week, by only managing to down 4 pints in an hour, instead of his usual 6!! I bet his wife doesn’t know! There will be a new section to the site soon entitled ‘ Scrippsys Secrets’ ten things you didn’t know about our elder statesman, where the rest of the Moos will give their little snippets of information on the antics of our Heartbeat favourite!!

Clic24

Congratulations to everyone from the Moos who took part in the Clic24 event on the weekend, we managed to raise over £1000 for charity and had a good laugh along the way.

We entered four teams for the event these were:-

TOMMYS TANKERS
Phil ‘TOM’ Howells
Gordon ‘SCRIPPSY’ Thornton
Richard ‘DICKIE’ Watkins
Owain ‘CROCK’ Crockett

BERNAARDS LARD ARSES
Nick ‘BERNAARD’ Berni
Rob ‘OPTION’ James
Gareth ‘GAZ’ Williams
Mark ‘OWGIE’ Howells

DP CYCLES
Chris ‘CHRISSIE’ Watkins
Ant ‘RYAN THE STEAM’ Ryan
Martyn ‘MARTY’ Roberts
David ‘DAISHOP’ Price

FAIRY LIQUIDS
Jon ‘MECHANIC’ Wright

The Captain, Tom, Chrissie, Bernaard and Myself travelled down on Friday night to get the ‘camp’ set up, it wasn’t looking good, the weather was inclement to say the least, and the wind was of hurricane proportions, but thankfully after a windswept night spent in the tent things were looking a lot better for the Saturday.
With the rest of the Moos turning up we were soon well into the swing of things, everyone came well prepared perhaps that it is for Marty, who hadn’t brought a sleeping bag or any warm clothes, and of course Johnny ‘Mechanic’ who’s bike was in a terrible state. Luckily for him Dai Shop had brought his van full of spares, and also brought some spare bikes, so he offered Johnny a ‘full suss’ to ride, Johnny being Johnny started to laugh and said ‘My wife has got some of those!’ Somebody then had to explain to Johnny that ‘suss’ was an abbreviation for suspension, not suspenders!!

Midday was soon upon us and it was time to start, with the Captains of the teams leading us off, they made good time on the first lap completing it in under an hour. This was continued throughout the day, with everyone riding a good pace, there was only one accident, when Dickie took his eye off the trail and ended up landing on his shoulder and had to visit the first aid tent. Another Moo who had to visit one of the tents was the ‘Mechanic’ for although he was riding a ‘full suss’ this didn’t stop him from having problems with his lower back, and he was a regular visitor to the physiotherapy and massage tent, for everyone else it was quite a cheap weekend, but for Johnny it was a little more expensive as he spent a lot of money on massages for his poor back, at one point he almost missed his turn to ride as he was in the tent paying for another rub!

During the afternoon we had a visit to the Moos camp by Reg Thornton, father of Scrippsy. I know that Scripssy has been ill recently and looking a bit worse for wear, but when Reg turned up everyone thought that it was Scrippsy’s brother. It was also amazing to see the change in Scrippsy’s behaviour, because as soon as Reg sat down to join us Scrippsy changed his can of Stella for a cup of tea, and instead of swearing every 5 seconds suddenly became much more eloquent, and even sat down quietly instead of running around the camp chasing Chrissie with a barbecued sausage between his legs!!

As the evening wore on everyone was becoming a bit more tired and stiff, but the pace was kept up, Dai Shop who must be commended for bringing all the tools to keep everyone on the trail was busy tweaking everyone’s nuts making sure that they were nice and tight before we mounted our bikes for another lap, and Dickie and Ant did a sterling job keeping the fire going so that there was always a hot drink and food on the go, the cooking was even more impressive, when you consider that we forgot to take cooking utensils, and their tools of the trade consisted of a 32mm combination spanner, a pair of pliers and a screwdriver!! But the food tasted just as good, as Ryan the Dream said ‘That Jimmy Olive has got nothing on me!!!!’

With it well into the hours of darkness, most of us were trying to snatch a few hours sleep, but this was rudely punctuated at 0430am by Ryan the Dream doing his best impression of a cockerel and woke everyone up, in fact the only person he didn’t wake up was Marty, who we all thought was suffering from hypothermia as he shivered his way through the morning ruing the fact that he hadn’t come prepared!!

With all the Moos continuing the good riding performance throughout Sunday morning, it was time to complete the last lap. For this one we decided to break the rules slightly and all 13 of us rode together, so as soon as Johnny had finished his last rub we were off, and what a cracking sight it was, with people taking photographs of us right left and centre it was a brilliant lap. The only downside was that ‘The Steam’ collected the only puncture of any of us all weekend, but this was quickly fixed and we were off again. With the time approaching the cut off point of midday disaster struck, as the Captain’s trusty steed broke and he was unable to pedal. So with the Moos singing a rendition of Rolf Harris’s ‘Two little Boys’ we took it in turns to tow the stricken Captain the last three miles home.

We were greeted with applause as we crossed the finish line, tired but happy that we had completed the course. However there was one more expensive mistake that was made, because in his haste to drive home afterwards, Crock managed to drive straight over Bernaards bike in his truck, Dai Shop could be seen rubbing his hands with delight at the thought of ‘stinging’ Crock for the repairs!!!