The weather was glorious as 9 riders set off for the 125 km reliability ride at 0830 this morning. This included Andy and Anna from Evo Tri.

After a warm up over Pinkneys Green and down Quarry Road the pace increased a bit from Marlow into Henley.  Then a rise out of Henley towards Rotherfield and an undulating road over to Didcot, as arm warmers came off despite the constant head wind.

 

 

All the while the clouds were building.  Classy as always, we stopped off at Tesco's for a quick break....and the rain started!  The arm warmers went back on, but luckily it was more of a nuisance than anything else, and it wouldn't be a MDCC reliability ride without some rain! The wind behind us for a while, and a flat road, we zoomed along behind Sam, Andy, Alex and Anna with Nigel going from front to back keeping us all together.

 

One big hill left and then downhill back into Marlow, Bourne End and home - 130km in 5 hours. For George and me this was the longest ride we had ever done and although George's legs looked a bit done in by the end I think he enjoyed it as much as I did.

 

 

Thanks to Nigel for organising it and looking after us all....I am not sure how you did it with that bag over your shoulder - it would have driven me mad!