The Horn of Plenty

A few things before I start rambling on, most of the riders managed to get down to the Birmingham City Football ground before the Chelsea game on Tuesday 6 March, for our photo shoot to promote CyclingforHarry, Birmingham City are supporting us in a few ways, watch this space!!!

On Monday 5 March, @melcastle69 and myself (@bcfcboz) met with @combuteit to discuss ideas about our new website, watch this space!!

On Saturday 10 March, I met up with Tim Andrews @hwoodmonster to bat out a few ideas about our cycling event, watch this space!!!

Now if you can stop watching this space and read the rest of the blog that would be lovely.

I couple of the riders managed to get out mid week and clock up a few miles, knowing that they would be busy or working over the weekend, there was also a few casualties @icemanblueboy still not well enough to train after his Hernia operation, @l4rk1n has been hit with a bout of man flu, @benno112 is not allowed out of his better half’s sight as she is about to drop!  @davespittle is under strict instruction to paint his whole house before his big day on Friday 16 March.  This is the sign of things to come @davespittle, trust me one speaks from experience.  Then @larks99 was sitting on a sun lounger on a roof top complete with pool supping a cold one in Tenerife.  The rest were playing football or hung over. 

Sunday morning is here and the weather is sweet! I get a tweet off @primal2001 (Andy) one of our Twitter followers to see if we are out for our normal stint.  Andy comes out regular with @alanjamesuk to join us in our practice runs.  Giving him a hell yeah, I arranged to meet him outside the Olton Tavern pub at 10:15 am. 

Whilst eating my scrambled egg and ham on toast I see that early bird @davejbrady is already out.  He has work at 11 so cant join us.  But his company Sytner Birmingham are sponsoring us, so I can forgive him.  He’s tearing up the miles with an average of 14.8mph.  Nice going buddy and fair play for getting out again at that time of the morning.  Saying that, my pep talks I was sending to him would have helped him out. Lol

@will_coyne, @brunone1 and @heathy79 are all due to meet at mine for 09:45 am.  @will_coyne (Kids) turns up eager beaver at 09:30 am telling me he has only had 4 hours kip but he will be okay because he has stocked up with Mars Bars.  Due to the problems 2 weeks ago regarding the tyres on the @larknlarks matching bikes I asked Will if he had got any spare inner tubes, his reply was “nah mate I will be alright”.  Brownie and Ray both turned up in their T-Shirts and #HHHO vests.  There was me and Will in our thermal tops, t-shirt and vest, there was a bit of a wind chill going on so Will and I think we are doing the right thing.  I kissed the wife and kid goodbye and off we set. 

Will starts to show concern about his tyre pressure in his front tyre I quickly suggest popping to Halfords to get him a spare inner tube before heading to meet @primal2001 and @melcastle69.  By the time we got to Halfords Will and myself realised that the thermal tops we were wearing underneath our shirts and vests was maybe a step too far, but hey ho I am fat and can do with all the help I can get LOL. 

@heathy79 and @will_coyne disappear into Halfords complete with bikes and ten minutes later emerge with a free part service on @heathy79 bike and some sort of slime tyre for Will’s bike.  An £8.99 bargain.  So now Will has his spare inner tube, but nowhere to put it!  Between the 4 of us it took about 5-10 minutes for us to decide how we were going to carry it with us, so eventually Will ends up carrying it around his neck like a bullet strap, as his pouch was full of Mars bars!   (his bike pouch you dirty lot – Kids)

Off we head to meet the others, at the Olton Tavern.  A quick hello and off we go!  We start making some good time and distance and before you know it we are 6 mile into a planned 40 mile bike ride.  We get to this T Junction and I am leading the pack I have a look and all I can see is a motorbike coming from the distance on my left, I proceed only to hear this motorbike’s wimpey horn sounding frantically as if he was going to take me out (not to the isle of Fernando’s) he was no where near me, but obviously not keen on cyclists crossing his path.  I get across the T Junctions and the rest of the group are taking the mick out of me because of my not so near death experience.  Panic over we start chewing the miles up. 

Things are going surprisingly well, I mention this to @brunone1 so we decide to start making our own entertainment as you are all aware @brunone1 is armed with a bright blue ridiculously sounding horn.  Everybody he came across got the “horn of plenty” people walking their dogs, other cyclists, people walking, joggers, and random sheep in fields.  The horn of plenty was accepted in different ways, some with a smile, some with a “morning”, some with a look of disgust and some with a plain old “baahhh” (that’s a sheep by the way).  Approaching 17 miles we all know this part is full of hills, still feeling the affects of Bronchitis @melcastle69 hits the hills and struggles, over the first one, but we all know the second one is the killer hill.  We manage to get up slowly but surely whilst @melcastle69 takes the dismount approach LOL.  In all fairness if we had all done that we would have got up it a lot quicker ourselves.  At the top of the hill its time for a break, out comes the chocolate and drinks.  Things are going that well we haven’t even had an opportunity to take any photos yet, out came the phone. 

 

@melcastle69 & @primal2001

 

@brunone1 & @heathy79



@will_coyne & @brunone1

This is the stage were we sold Dave Davies a bracelet two weeks ago and the legend ended up donating £50 to our absolute delight.  Talk about having a tingle down my spine when I seen that on the Justgiving site and reading his message – hats off to you Dave!  Mint.

Off we go again Will has caned his 6 Mars Bars (other chocolate bars are available).  Kids! 

Again making good speed in the distance we see a bunch of lady cyclists all kitted out in Hi-Vis pink and yellow cycling jerseys, @brunone1 honks his horn of plenty and the reaction from these ladies is a fit of laughter.  As we ride by I shout out (loving the plug) “FOLLOW CYCLINGFORHARRY” but concentrating on these lovely ladies and trying to get my plug across I nearly take @melcastle69 out in the process.  That’s two near misses. 

Further up the road we see these two hikers climbing over one of those wooden gates up pops @brunone1 honking his horn right at the time the lady cocks her leg over the gate LOL, which was received in another fit of laughter.  The next near miss was yours truly again, my bike cHARRYot seems to be having a problem to get into its highest gear I hit a country lane with nothing in front of me so I start looking down at the cogs on my bike to see if I can solve the issue, then I hear a bellow “Benno” at that point I look up and see another cyclist heading straight towards me.  I take evasive action whilst saying sorry to the response of “you stupid idiot”.  A bit harsh but this bloke must have met me before Ha Ha Ha. 

Nearly at Chadwick End and its time to say “goodbye” to @melcastle69, 3 more miles and she’s off home.  We have a quick convo about trying to hit the 40 miles so we come up with a plan to change the normal route and head towards Solihull and Damson Wood to add those extra few miles on.  So we do as discussed, we get to the back of the Land Rover and head through Elmdon Park and I realise that we are still gonna be about 5 mile short of our target, so instead of going straight through the park whilst leading the group I decide to take them on a wild goose chase.   We go around the lake, and back to the entrance of the park only to double back on ourselves, to head back towards the Wheatsheaf.  By this time @brunone1 is moaning like a baby before we know it we are back by the

Coventry Road

. 

A little parched after hitting 35 miles I lead them towards the Olton Tavern, as you are aware @bblackwell77 cycles round distributing many of our posters.  After a conversation earlier in the week @bblackwell77 told me that the Tavern are very interested in Helping Harry Help Others and our CyclingForHarry event.  So who am I to stand in the way of publicising the event further!  @heathy79 and myself walked up to the bar whilst the Kid and Moaner was outside in the beer garden. 

It was apparent that @bblackwell77 had been here and that the Landlady Vicky Higgins was happy to help promote our event.  Not only are there posters all around the place, a business card sized flyer for CyclingForHarry is handed out with every food purchase.  For this effort we had to make sure we sampled their produce accordingly!  5 pints later we ran out of money so we had to leave.  Staring at two more miles on the saddle, we get to the Wheatsheaf and the lights are just changing to red, a car pulls up alongside the curb forcing @heathy79 nearly onto the path.  In all fairness to @heathy79 he keeps his calm taps softly the passenger window and asks “did you not see me?” and bless this lady’s cotton’s she replied back with “No I didn’t – Sorry”.   I think @heathy79 was expecting some sort of argument but ended up laughing at this ladies mistake. 

Arriving home we clocked over 37 miles. 

Shower and chocolate milkshake required! 

NUMBER 47 RANKED IN THE UK RANKINGS ON #FOLLOWFRIDAY THIS WEEK

thanks all for your #FF's I do look forward to Fridays.

Keep an eye out for @sp2a and there TIP tweets.  They are betting on all Cheltenham Races with all winnings going to #CyclingForHarry.  http://www.sp2a.co.uk/news.aspx