What a cracking start to the week. For those of us who could be bothered to drag ourselves out of bed on Sunday morning, we were privileged to take part in a breathtaking ride. With the Captain fixing his TV aerial, and Chrissy and Bernaard deciding that getting smashed out of their heads on alcohol was more important than riding, it was left to 8 hardy soles to brave the winter weather. Ryan The Steam, Scrippsy, Dickie, Marty, Gaz, Jim, Nick and Myself set out on a beautiful icy crisp morning, with a short sharp climb, we were soon a couple of hundred feet above sea level and we encountered a good dusting of snow. It was from here on in that Scrippsy proceeded with some trepidation, because he suddenly remembered the last time he went out on his bike in the snow, apparently there was a significant snowfall in the winter of 1947, when Scrippsy was a wee slip of a boy, and thinking it would be fun, he decided to take his penny farthing out for a spin, but laughter soon turned to tears as he hit some ice and collided with an Austin 10, and had to spend 2 weeks in hospital!!

Considering the pensive Scrippsy, the rest of us still managed to enjoy the ride, with the trails covered in snow adding a much more challenging dimension, we also managed to take some good wintry photos, which can be found in the gallery. It was however a different story on Wednesday, as it was back to the usual wet and muddy trails, but this was somewhat compensated by the fact that Marty, who was taking his first ride, led us on a very interesting and stimulating ride, it was full of everything and took in such Miggly Moo landmarks like the infamous Garlic Lane and the Velvet Path. He didn’t let us down on the refreshment side either as he cunningly designed his ride to coincide with a visit to the evergreen Maenllwyd Inn. It was here that the theme of the week was enjoyed. A quarter of sweets was the order of the day, and although everyone made a wonderful contribution, only the Watkins brothers and Dave Morgan managed to bring sweets in the obligatory paper bag. With such wonderful sweeties it was hard to choose the best ones, Scrippsy’s American Hard Gums were a firm favourite (although we did think he was going to bring Werthers Originals) but the best sweets were undoubtedly Harty’s Bon Bons!

It was at this point that we had to send out an emergency call to Bernaard, who had been sitting at home watching Emmerdale with his mother, the task was to bring a camera to us at high speed, because Dave had just seen the GLC (Goldie Lookin’ Chain) entering the building. With Owgie performing his Captains duty admirably by asking them if they would mind donning a Moos shirt for the website, Bernaard duly took the photos.

After this impromptu meeting with the GLC, it was back to headquarters, and Crock carrying on his awful riding display, by showing us that tonight he was unable to stay on his bike, it has also been noted that Dai Shop failed to negotiate the ‘Jump’ for the second week running, although he was a bit subdued as Crock had earlier told him that he was going to wait for him to go ‘through the hoop’ and then tap him up for some gear ‘dirt cheap’, nice to see Crock having such confidence in ‘The Shop’!!!

As we entered HQ we were met by Tom, who told us that he was unable to ride because he had gone to the cinema, he had no eye deer which film to watch, so he ended up watching Bambi, but apparently it wasn’t a happy ending. Anyway there were a few awards to hand out, the first being old Scrippsy’s birthday; it’s a testament to modern medicine that he is still able to ride with us at the ripe old age of 62!! And Dickie who was awarded the inaugural ‘rider of the month award’. Dickie will now have the pleasure of selecting next month’s recipient of the award.

As the night drew to a close Crock showed us that as well as falling off his bike all night, he had tonight also ‘fallen off the wagon’ in spectacular style, and he was now reduced to a drunken blubbering mess. The boys had commented on how they had never seen him in this state before, while Dai the Shop was seen sniggering (perhaps it wasn’t just cider in his glass!!??)

I would like to finish by passing on our best wishes to Ryan the Steam who was unable to ride, because he was in hospital suffering from a badly perforated teabag, in his haste to get his daily fix of Yorkshire tea, he greedily gulped down a mug of his favourite tipple, but forgot to take the bag out, which duly got lodged in his throat!!!!!