On an unexpectedly sunny Saturday morning, eight riders met up for a 60(ish) mile ride to Ripon. Two groups were formed and after a brief photo opportunity at Armscliffe Crag we parted ways. Four rode at SRAN pace and four at an AIR pace.

At the cafe stop (Oliver’s pantry in Ripon) the two groups briefly met, the SRAN group was just leaving as we arrived. We enjoyed our first visit to this cafe, the food was good and the service provided by our waitresses Alison and Veronica was excellent. It was agreed that Oliver’s Pantry should be added to our list of AOCC approved cafes.

The ride out to the cafe was very pleasant and largely uneventful no-one suffered a puncture and needed to ‘pump it up’. Although Dom hit a pothole hard and suffered a handlebar malfunction (accidents will happen!).

There was plenty of close up wildlife action on the ride we saw a low-flying red kite and had near misses with a pheasant and a deer, (which jumped a hedge, ran across the road and cleared the hedge opposite – a majestic sight, but could have been terrifying if we had been 20 yards further down the road).

Thanks to everyone who came out, it was another great ride in the Yorkshire countryside, and as someone possibly said ‘lets go to Ripon, I don’t want to go to Chelsea…’.

Steve