OGIL ride 21st July 2021
The service at the Hub in Portreath plumbed new depths this Wednesday. There was nothing Kinky about the fact that many of us became tired of waiting for our grub.
Phil1 waited 50 minutes for a slice of cake to be delivered (apparently the staff had trouble opening the ‘fridge), and when Jan’s banana and peanut butter smoothie bowl (yes, it’s a thing) eventually turned up after repeated promptings, it turned out to be strawberry! They had run out of bananas, but how they thought they could just dish up something different was beyond us. Quite rightly, Jan was indignant and demanded a refund. Almost as indignant was Amanda, who was going to be charged £1 for some extra hot water in her coffee – that obviously wasn’t going to happen either. The icing on the cake (if you could get one) was when the barrier came down at 1045 when it was declared that breakfast was finished for the day, even though there was still a queue of hungry Wheelers who had arrived well before then, and the advertised cut-off was 1100. This even led certain individuals to break ranks and indulge in cheesy chips from the kiosk on the beach.
The Hub was apparently under new management and was staffed entirely by teenagers who only seemed to have a vague grasp of what was expected of them. Well, the Hub will now be struck off the Wheelers’ list of preferred refreshment suppliers. We only went there because the Atlantic wasn’t opening until 11am.
This was all a real shame as we had started the day optimistically enough – no rain, nice and warm (don’t mention the Met Office extreme heat warnings) and a wide choice of delightful destinations and routes at our disposal. Needless to say, a wide choice means a wide ranging discussion, but despite calls of “we went there last week/month/year” to every suggestion, it was eventually decided to go to Portreath. A goodly number of us had congregated at TOP (I didn’t actually count, but eleven twelve seems like a reasonable guess), including Ian sporting his TdF Maillot Jaune (I’m pretty sure he didn’t actually win it), and we moved off up the hill. Ian uncharacteristically took a back seat on the ride, perhaps thinking that, Pogačar-like, he could leave us all standing on the hills any time he wanted.
At the entrance to Via Ferrata we were informed by a nice lady to watch out for an approaching double decker bus, so we proceeded with caution until we met it at Halvasso and we pulled over to let it pass, getting waves from the excited children inside.
Shortly after Hernis there was a collective moment of indecision as we wondered whether to turn right towards Stithians or left towards Carnkie. I am not aware of much debate, but a curious phenomenon that sometimes manifests itself when there is a critical mass of OGILs and which can only be described as emergent consciousness resulted in us spontaneously turning left to head for Bolenowe (note the pronunciation) and Barripper. I am pretty sure that nobody took the lead on this decision, it just happened.
And so we made our way once again to experience the delights of Tuckingmill and onwards to Tehidy and thence to Portreath. On the way most of us had our legs and arms ripped by overgrowing brambles on the narrow lanes – an occupational hazard at this time of year, I suppose. It was also interesting to observe the tight discipline of the riding. Calls of “car back” and “car coming through” seemed to be largely ignored by those riding two abreast (and even sometimes three abreast – no names mentioned!), but this could be down to hearing loss I suppose.
I have already related our experience in Portreath, a shame since it’s a good destination. The one saving grace was that Mike was celebrating his birthday the day before and generously bought us all teas and coffees (you did settle your tab before leaving, didn’t you Mike?). This prompted a member of the committee to check that he had everybody’s DOB in his database so that nobody could escape this growing tradition in future.
When we had at last finished what food and drink we managed to get, we set off on the normal route home via Bridge and Redruth.
Apart from the trauma of our refreshment stop, we had a nice relaxed ride – nobody was keen to push the pace or dash up hills because of the heat. 63 km for me.
Photographs used without permission