The baton is still travelling

I was out and about again today in very windy weather to retrieve the baton from a local churchyard. Now people are drifting back to work it often gets stuck at its hiding place for several days.  We seem to have a religious theme at the moment and it has been to several churches.

Lots of inspiration for embroidery projects at Norton

RouteQuest 2020 South

The end of the ride

Over the past two years Women on Wheels (WOW) have organised a Cycling Weekend which has included several levels of ride, a Treasure Hunt and barbecue.  Of course this year was different because we were very restricted as to what we could actually do due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.  Not to be defeated two of our Ride Leaders, Rachel and Sheena, came up with the idea of a type of Treasure Hunt where everyone participating could ride with 1 or 2 other people. 10 locations had to be visited, with a choice of a Northern or Southern route.  The biggest challenge was plotting your own route using either a map or computer plotting system which could be loaded onto a navigation aid such as a Garmin.

I teamed up with one of my Couch to 50k friends. We had the choice of going out Friday, Saturday or Sunday, or a combination of the days, to visit some or all of the locations.  Speed was not important, mileage was and we were encouraged not to use main roads. There was a points scoring system but Sue and I did not take much heed of this. We were not out to win, just have fun.

Having looked at the weather forecast we chose the Southern route which was closest to home. We also decided to do it all as one ride. The route did not seem too long, but I had not calculated properly for the cycle home from the end of our route, with a detour to have more coffee at Clive's on the way home!

Members of 3 other teams

Apart from the fact that in the end we we rode a massive 61 miles, we encountered several other groups of WOW members along the way, which was wonderful as we have not seen each other for months.

Several groups took advantage of a stop at Clive's Fruit Farm near Upton on Severn to fuel up with coffee and bacon sandwiches.  Sue and I really appreciated this as we had ridden out from home, tackled a steep ride to the top of The Wyche Cutting in Malvern, where our route started, then ridden back down it to continue our journey which eventually ended up at Birtsmorton.

One of the Crazy teams of cyclists

Chasing the Baton again but with friends

Three up today and they found the baton, although it had been moved from where I had left it on Monday for them.  Unfortunately prior to this I had a puncture.  First one since I started cycling!!  Sue and I had to try and remember what we had been taught on the Bike Maintenance course way back when we did the Couch to 50K in 2017.  I got a bit stuck putting the new tube into the tyre but a lovely man stopped and told me where I was going wrong.

Liz had problems with her bike too.  Her mudguard was catching the wheel so she really needs to think about taking them off for the summer I think.  My Garmin decided not to work after we had been stopped to fix the puncture and I did not realise until I had ridden 4 miles further on to pick up the baton. Think we must have had gremlins?  Enjoyed an ice cream sat in the sunshine outside a local village shop though. Lovely ride ad lovely company.  Makes a change to riding by myself.