I hope all will agree that in spite of the absence of our leader, we had an agreeable ride today and were acquainted with many interesting features of Aldington, St Rumwold's Church, and the art of making a good batter. The crepes were truly excellent Norman, mouth meltingly delicious and needed only a grain or two of demerara and a squeeze of lemon to make them historic.Tonight's menu at Millstone's Caff was Crapeau dans le Trou (Toad in the 'ole). The batter wa...

Climbing to Crundale for a scrumptious lunch at The Compasses! Wednesday February 24th 2010: Only Ruth and John set out from Willesborough this morning under leaden skies and driving rain. Peter and Rosemary have heavy colds (the first ride our leader has missed), while Norman has 'trackey-itis' (from which Rosemary also suffers each time Peter takes us off-road). After last Sunday's soaking, John has wrapped his feet in plastic bags. Ruth does the same. Smart ...

The Lord Whisky for lunch (again) The temperature was still hugging zero as six Ragstones rode out of Bedrock on an icy trail in search of the Ragstones' utopia: developing a healthy appetite followed by a satisfying lunch. Ruth, Robert, Judith, John, Martin and Peter raced through Stamford, slid through Monks Horton, pedalled furiously to East Brabourne and then came to a shimmering halt at the bottom of Janet's hill.The only way to get up this steep ice-rink...

A Winter's Tale on the Miners' Trail Wednesday 10th February 2010 Millstone wakes early, and draws the curtains. (He always keeps a pencil and sketch pad by the bed). Through the frosted window pane he looks across the fields and up at the downs. They have been lightly dusted with snow during the night, but the ever dependable weather forecast is for bright warm sunshine. Rosemary and Judith have other work today, Stuart is on his roof, Norman is on the piste...

Today's trio of Peter, Judith and Ruth had an early start, leaving Bedrock at 9.15am. We knew that it was time to start getting some serious mileage under our belts in preparation for Peter & Judith doing the Cape Argos ride in South Africa. We sped off via Aldington, where Judith paused to deliver a letter, thus saving herself 30p postage. In "normal" circumstances we would have been joined by Norman here, but he had cried off citing a bad cold for...