Simon’s virgin ride

I woke up on Thursday morning after having had the most vivid, yet weirdest dream ever, it went something like this…………………

les capitaines rêvent (the captains dream)

Newcomer Simon Clarke had gathered the Moo’s for his debut ride as leader, and had based his ride on Le Tour de France.

As we set off from légion britannique royale we headed into the bois de Machen (Machen woods), climbing the category 3 climb of Rhyd y Gwern la petite route.
Onto the category 1 climb of les empreintes de sylviculture (the forestry track), we picked up a couple of Feathers strays and headed for the very aptly named ‘petite route d'ail’ (Garlic Lane). All safely down and it was talk of our first Stella Artois.

The auberge de hollybush was our destination and after a few words of temptation from the Moos, ride leader Clarke, riding for team ‘stinking thong’ quite rightly stuck to his guns and continued with the ride, explaining to Capitaine, riding for team ‘El Capitaine’ that we need to at least get some Kilometres under our belt first. A casualty emerged from the peloton, Rog Parnell racing for team ‘shite downhiller’ binned it on the flat section after trying to interfere with Scripsy – Scripsy loves a bit of interference!!!

It was a fast pace along the petite route de pays, there was a breakaway at the front, led by Capitaine and quickly joined by Vice, Griff, Gaz & Reg. Soon the peloton caught up and the first watering station, auberge de Maenllwyd caused the pace to slow up.

The race finally went into serious mode as the huge peloton made their way up the Cote de Rudry Commun, no one had the legs to pass the ride leader on the climb, but a powerful sprint by Capitaine led to a few challengers, it also resulted in a few being left behind and Parnell’s day got even worse when he slipped some gears and yet again had to dismount his bike. Gaz racing for team ‘self’ reached the peak first. Casualties were noted, where another member of team ‘shite downhiller’ had crashed on the nasty 2 inch kerb – oh hang on it was actually Rog Parnell again !!!

A bit of terrain rugueux (rough terrain) stretched out the riders and the descent towards village de Rudry, seen the riders stagger into the second drinking station.
A quick dash down through Waterloo, where Scrippsy recalled his days in Wellington’s army, and it was on to the route principale à Machen, where a final watering station gave the riders a chance to re-fuel before the final sprint to the finish at le pub de bras tradesman’s.

It was noted that there were some disqualifications as a few riders took a detour, namely Gaz, team ‘Self’, Jimmy Mc, team ‘Circumcision’, Owgie, team ‘tell me what the time is’, Griff, team ‘Vertigo’ and Dave Barnes of team ‘crucifixion’.

Capitaine was first back and took the leaders thong off Simon Clarke and will probably lead next weeks ride with last years downhill champion, Nick Berni giving us a feel for the forthcoming downhill champs.

The post ride celebrations –

After the 3 stops at the watering stations there was plenty of banter and joviality at HQ.
Cap’n Peal had forgotten the birthdays, and after a quick reminder Ant Ryan was greeted back from the bogs, with a tunnel of Moos, cheering and clapping him all the way to his Guiness and Whiskey.

A further celebration was announced and for the first time a 20-year wedding anniversary was celebrated by the Moos – congratulations Ant, have another Guiness.
It was advised that Russ Evans had grown up by another year, I think that puts him at a mental age of 14 now – giggle, giggle, giggle. Crockett, who had been riding for team ‘Tw#t’ had concocted some beverage of sorts and if it hadn’t been for Cap’ns intervention we may well have been taking Russ for some ‘pumping’

My dream then turned into a nightmare, did I really see………………………

• Russ and Ant gang raping Scripsy on the TA floor?

• Was Russ trying to Roger Ant up against the bar?

• Did Russ go rampaging across the TA bearing his all and sundry?

• Did Russ actually put his appendage in Cap’ns ear?

• Just what were Russ and Jock actually doing with those balloons? – did they not realise they could not be inflated anymore?

• Was it possible that Gordon did actually get over excited by all the shenanigans? And actually spray some liquid all over our incumbent Captain.

• Did this lead to a beer fight between the remaining Moos?

Phrases that I recall from my dream, are –

As you can imagine I was totally relieved once I woke, as I realised that there was no way that the events of my dream could have actually happened…………..could they?
Here’s to Simons ride next year

Keep Moo’n

Cap’n Peal