First and foremost I must thank our very own Superman Gaz ‘Chris Reeve’ Williams for doing a cracking job in taking over the writing of the ‘Odes’ this past month, although it was quite easy for him as he has had a lot of practice working for The Daily Planet for many years!Å

I have not been able to ride for about 5 weeks due to work commitments and my first ride back resulted in the Moos having another injury in their ranks, after Tom managed to cut me up on the trail and cause me to take evasive action which resulted in a broken left arm!! It’s proving to be a long process writing this with one finger!!

Apart from the unfortunate injury, Wednesday night was one of the best nights for a long time in the history of the Moos, we had been invited over to Cwmcarn by some of the boys from Ashfield’s for them to take us on one of their trails. Our numbers were significantly boosted compared to recent weeks as 15 of us piled into Marty and Dai Shops vans for the quick journey up over Ochr Wyth and down into Risca.

We looked a formidable sight as we joined around 10 of the ‘Ashfield’ boys and started a ride through the main road of Abercarn and on up into the hills. With temperatures still around 24-25C there were a lot of hot red faces by the time we had reached the top especially Ryan the Dream who actually managed to get a bit of colour on his legs for the first time in a decade!! With the climbing out of the way and a ‘Shepherds Delight’ of a sunset behind us we covered about a mile of lateral gravel track followed by a grassy section before embarking on a cracking piece of downhill, technical in sections, which was as good as any encountered in the past couple of months. This is where the ride was even more ‘cracking’ for me as I managed to ‘come a cropper’ which resulted in a broken arm and a curtailed ride as I had to depart early and wait for the rest of them in the Philanthropic Inn.

Without further mishaps everyone else turned up at ‘Risca HQ’ about an hour later, and in desperate need of some light refreshment. With a few bowls of chips on offer and many mouths to feed, it was obvious that there was not going to be a repeat of the five loaves two fish miracle, that was until Martyn Ashfield, proprietor of the imaginatively and originally named Martyn Ashfield Cycles flew into action to rectify the food deficit. He deftly located a chip shop and although it was late on a Wednesday night he managed to buy a bucket load of chips and a mound of sausages. Although the sausages looked a bit overcooked and shrivelled, they were nothing compared to what we saw later when Scrippsy was treating everyone to a rendition of "I’m forever blowing bubbles" standing on a chair, Gaz and Ryan the Dream pulled his shorts down and exposed Scrippsy’s own version of something gnarled and shrivelled on a Wednesday night!!

With everyone having a superb night it was suddenly brought to an abrupt end, when one of our quieter members had a quite uncharacteristic major outburst and told us all that we had to go home because Marty was tired. Harty has now assumed the mantle of our ‘City Boy’s’ very own Guardian Angel!!!

On behalf of the Moos we would like to thank Cheryl of the Philanthropic, for welcoming us into the bosom of her pub(literally for Scrippsy) and making us feel welcome, Ross, Anthony and the rest of the boys for organising a superb ride, Martyn for treating us to dinner and reciting a wonderful poem to us, and to Curly, Ron and Big John for staying with us until the bitter end, and for John providing me with a temporary sling which has now been washed and ironed and will be returned next week when we reciprocate the favour by inviting the Boys over to ride with us!

Just to finish, there are some new celebs on our 'Celbs in Moo shirts' section for you to feast your eyes upon.