As the weather looked slightly uncertain when I left home, I decided not to use my latest acquisition, a 19 year old Cross Micro, for this long ride, but I settled instead on my Moulton APB, which had not hitherto had much exercise this year.
The destination for the April ride was Kingsbury Water Park. As seems usual when this is the destination, John Pinkerton was overseas, so the ride was led on this occasion by Ian Kellaway on a Moulton AM2. Despite John's absence, the turn out was good, and the weather was excellent throughout. Peter King expressed some concern during the outward ride that the following wind was going to be less welcome on the return journey, but we were unusually lucky in that either the wind had dropped or we were sheltered from its effects on the more direct and slightly flatter return journey. 2 AM Moultons, 3 APBs, an ATB (Chris Eley had left his New Series Moulton at home this time), one Birdy and two conventional tourers took part, and at Kingsbury we met up with a Raleigh RSW16 folder. There were no Bromptons! All the bikes behaved perfectly throughout the ride.
It is very rare for me to encounter another Moulton apart from at events like this, so it was a considerable surprise to be joined at Solihull station on my way home by Robin Clarke on an original 1960's model.
I omitted to record the mileage on the ride itself, but by the end of the day I had done just over 50 miles, including travel to and from the event - I think the official ride distance would have been a shade under 30 miles. .
Copyright (C)1999 Ferrets Anonymous
URL: http://www.whooper.demon.co.uk/origami/orig0499.html
Last updated: 12 April 1999