AVP Moonscape Evening Ride

After a week off the bike, following my Dad's 80th birthday celebration, I met up last night with around a dozen Pedallers for a sunny 24 mile evening ride out around our Devon lanes.

It started routinely with Tigger and Jolly hatching out a route which had us heading out of Seaton into the setting sun towards Beer. With my Roubaix being prepared for an upcoming France adventure, I risked a ride out on my full carbon Tarmac, built for smooth asphalt and speed. All was going well until, along the TT favoured strip across Farway Common, we dropped down a steep drop to the little village of Woodbridge. The hill itself was a joy to descend, although I may have screamed like a girl at one point after meeting an elderly lady behind the wheel of a luckily small car, ascending at a narrow section at the bottom of the hill. Having little or no time to warn her that I was not alone, I was glad to see at the next regrouping point, everyone else seemed to get passed OK.

Pedallers regrouping in Woodbridge .. spot the Tarmac leaning against the wall

From here, the asphalt was replaced with a moonscape of shingle, boulders and craters. Nothing close to a road surface befitting the use of carbon rims and slick tyres was to be seen until we surfaced again at Seaton Junction! From here we slipstreamed our way back to Seaton, some departing along the way, others ending at the Kings Arms for well deserved refreshments.

It was a good ride, particularly the surfaced sections where the Tarmac performed beautifully.