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Another Sunday, another mad dash to make it to the rendezvous ahead of the 9 am rollout for the CTC Sunday ride.

Chapeau!

It’s always the same: I’m up bright and early on a Sunday and full of energy ahead of the ride. I know what time I need to leave. Plus I also know what chores I need to get done ahead of departing the house.

For chores read arseing around on the modern internet, OBVS.

I reached the University and took up a mountain descent positionas I sped down Boundary Road. There was mist rolling in from the Colne. It felt like autumn.

It might have been early but there were still some students rocking up ahead of the start of the new term. I don’t envy them having a full-on day of unpacking, saying farewell to family and friends, and then looking around and seeing who the fuck it is you’ve got to spend the next three years with.

Good luck.

What was all the rush for? I was at Leisure World for the 9 am rendezvous with five minutes to spare. We rolled out, taking a bit of a higgly-piggly route out of the half town, half city. This included cycling up Roman Road, a place I was settling into some 35-odd years ago.

I’m pretty shit at navigation around the half town, half city. I know my own locations and that’s about it. That’s all that I need to know.

It was therefore slightly unexpected to find out that we all of a sudden we were cycling underneath the grand St John’s Abbey Gate arch.

Quite a pace was being set by the lead rider. This was a little tricky as we had a lot of cycle paths and tight turns to overcome. I was half cleated for the first ten minutes or so.

It then became a bit of a cross-country ride. This wasn’t great for my road bike. At least it meant there was no traffic. It was all about avoiding the cars and getting us out onto the lanes.

But first how about a guided tour of development?

Stanway is an absolute anomaly to me. It is bloody never-ending. We seemed to go around all the new parts of the suburb that have now been submerged into the half town, half city.

I looked up and all of a sudden we were at Turkey Cock Lane. That always raises a smile.

A fifth rider was picked up at a designated rendezvous. He was a new rider to the group. He was riding an MTB. This slowed the pace down slightly.

We were approaching the coffee stop at Tiptree. I had a quick glance over into one of the fields and saw around a dozen or so monkjack deer prancing around and having the absolute bloody time of their lives.

Tea was then taken at Tiptree. Other riders were already waiting for us, leading to a rather sizeable group of 15.

The plan was then to head over on a Mersea Island hop. I decided in advance to take a little bit of a detour and opt out on route.

There were plenty of other cyclists on what was a glorious October autumnal sunny afternoon. We passed one poor fella who was having some unfortunate cleat adjustments in a ditch. My main concern was dodging a few apples that were falling from the trees.

Abberton Reservoir was reached. We stopped for a little bit of birding. I looked around, saw a few birds with feathers, and thought, yep, let’s move on.

I was now on familiar territory as part of my regular 40 km circuit. Most of the other riders headed out over to cross into Mersea. I took a left turn and went back down along through Fingeringhoe.

Ha bloody ha, etc.

That’s 260 km for the week. Happy with that.

To the Essex Sports Arena! …on Saturday evening. The Rebels Division One men had their home season opener of the regular season, with Newcastle making the long journey all the way down to Our House.

It’s a long old stretch of a season, all the way to the playoffs in April of next year.

And so it begins.

The Rebels were short benched. Three players weren’t dressed, making decisions a little tricky for interim Head Coach Jordan Ashley.

Oh yeah, let’s talk about that interim Head Coach. The longer the season goes on, the more difficult it must be to recruit a full time Head Coach.

The longer the season goes on and the longer interim Head Coach Jordan Ashley continues to deliver, the more comfortable he looks in the role. Saturday evening at Our House was no exception.

Sitting behind us by many of the men’s Div 3 team. I like their enthusiasm; I like their freshness. I kind of like the collision of different aftershave smells that were lingering around us all evening.

The Rebels got off to an explosive start. It’s clear that their tactic under Coach Ashley is to play an incredibly fast paced game. The ball was moved around the court at tremendous speed.

Newcastle were just about able to match the tempo. Rebs had the slight advantage, taking a 23-21 lead into the first buzzer.

Dominant for the Rebels was Tre Baumgardner III. He needs to be with a name like that and he managed to live up to his reputation. He completely controlled the game, starting and finishing off moves, showing great awareness around the court.

The second quarter got a little crazy. Newcastle managed to pull ahead. It’s around this time in a game that the Rebs usually collapse. They somehow got their act together and managed to take the lead once again.

At one stage the home team had a 15-point lead towards the end of the second quarter. Tyrese Hudson rose to the occasion, coming off the bench putting in a fantastic performance.

Half time came. Let’s Go Crazy by Prince and The Revolution sounded bloody amazing being played out in full over the arena PA. I made a mental note to try and watch Purple Rain uninterrupted sometime next week.

The third period could have been a little cagey for the Rebels but it wasn’t. Some superb defending meant they didn’t buckle. They knew that a victory was within their sight as long as they kept the same team mentality together.

Come the final buzzer they had stretched away with a 94-79 home win. The celebrations were superb.

It was clear that all the players have the complete respect and trust in the young rookie coach. Ashley Jordan was singled out as the players pushed him forward to take all the acclaim.

Also a massive SHOUT OUT to Tyrese Hudson. He absolutely stepped up in this game, showing great vision and also finishing. He’s becoming something of a Rebels club legend.

Saturday’s ride was all about the gin. I was under strict instructions to return with a bottle of the finest and cheapest Lidl gin that money could buy. Which all meant this wasn’t a day for the road bike. I set off on the Raleigh Electric with a couple of panniers, also known as gin bags.

We are now entering sloe pickling season. Hopefully in three months' time we’ll be into sloe gin getting pissed season. We’re still using the tried and tested recipe kindly handed over to us by R almost 15 years ago.

But first how about a bicycle ride?

I made my way down through the University. It’s that one weekend of the year when returning students and new undergraduates start to rock up on campus. I remember those days well. They’re best off behind me.

I crossed over the Dirty River and made my way over towards Fingringhoe. Traffic was particularly heavy. I can’t be arsed to make a piss poor joke.

There was a rather quaint village scene by the village pond that is overlooked by Fingringhoe Church. There was a grandad, a father, and a young grandchild all fishing together. It really was quite sweet.

I’d mistimed my own personal rod dangling escapades completely wrong. I was caught short and had to pull over.

My timing was a lot better with the sleeping lion back in the cage, just before the next car turned around the bend.

Nothing to see here, Madam.

I reached Abberton Reservoir. There was a very excitable gathering of twitchers.

A little further along the route I could smell the fresh soil from the fields. It was all very rustic.

About 30 seconds later I realised it was actually manure.

The run-in involved seeing some poor fella roadside struggling with a puncture. I’ve learned that we don’t talk about this though.

Destination Lidl was reached. The cheapo Lidl gin wasn’t as cheapo as I was anticipating. I still went for the lowest price one, natch.

Objective achieved. Another bicycle ride ticked off.

Chapeau!

And so after all the waiting around following the RACE DAY in Manningtree last weekend, Friday afternoon was a much more relaxed affair with another WivGigs social row.

I don’t think I’m alone in the club in coming to the conclusion that race days are a little bit too much stress without much reward.

I don’t personally get stressed out with it all, but hanging around all day with some very tense rowers for what can be a 20-minute burst is difficult to justify at the weekends.

Social rowing it is then. You have time for conversation, you have time for gossip, you have time to do not a lot of rowing and just sit around in the boat and take pretty pics.

Whatever.

We launched at the Sailing Club hard, having been kindly waved through by a couple of dinghy sailors waiting to launch. The chap, in particular, had the most magnificent sailing beard.

I was also experimenting with my own appearance. It didn’t quite go to plan. I opted for my wet rowing shoes and then some ridiculous cycling luminous bib shorts that I rolled up to my knees as I waded in the water.

I won’t be troubling the front page for any fashion shoot of the next edition of Sexy Rowers Monthly.

We headed downstream, which was a surprise to me. I was half expecting the row to be cancelled. It was rather windy and the waters were incredibly choppy once we reached the Creek.

I’m not into all this nature shit but perhaps the highlight for me was some birds (GAWD knows what) that decided to speed past us at an incredibly low angle, almost hugging the water.

We reached a buoy. I’m not sure which buoy it was. You come back to this blog for these kinds of details, right?

The turn was made and then we had a bit of a brief water break before making the row back upstream. We must have downed oars for no more than two minutes. We had drifted around 500 km or so already back towards the Sailing Club. It was that kind of tide.

Talk in the boat then returned to race rowing. I had absolutely no idea there is a 300 Club option available for the Harker’s Yard series.

To qualify you need to have at least 300 years of age in the boat for all four rowers and a cox.

This could work perfectly if you somehow got a centurion in the boat who did pretty much fuck all and then some rather energetic 50 year-olds.

We recovered Varuna with still plenty of water around the Sailing Club. This was a nice ying to the yang of the Manningtree chaos of last weekend.

I returned to the road bike for Friday morning. Something just felt right about this. The Estuary Wilds still insist that it’s late summer and not early autumn. Road bikes are for summer, right?

The windy conditions were incredibly warm albeit windy. There was some debate about whether rowing would take place later in the day.

I opted for a gilet. It was the right decision both in terms of the atmospheric conditions and my aesthetics. I looked cool as fuck with a Brixton Cycles gilet.

The last-minute decision to neck a big fat bowl of porridge was a wise one. I had that Ready Brek glow as I rolled out to see where the road bike would take me.

I opted for the Lawford route. It’s an absolute breeze to get there now, with the new Road to Nowhere being open, but not really open. It throws me out along the Lawford to Manningtree stretch within no time at all.

I was singing along to Edwin Collins, having heard the magnificent Girl Like You shortly before setting off. No one else was around. I say singing, it was more like shouting out the lyrics and grunting that bloody great guitar riff.

The lanes were absolutely empty for Friday morning, all apart from one dickhead van driver who approached me in the opposite direction in the middle of Gawd knows where.

I did slow down and indicated I was going to pull over. The twat didn’t slow down and didn’t even attempt to head slightly to the left of the lane.

Oh dear.

Hey hoe, live to ride, ride to live, and all that bollocks.

Two birds, one stone for the Thursday afternoon bike ride, aka the Abberton Reservoir loop, which conveniently takes in a local Lidl for the weekly food shop. One panniers load up rather well with cheapo Lidl Greek yoghourt, whilst the other takes on board cheapo Lidl lager. Never forget the lager. Nope.

Chapeau!

It may have been the 1st of October but it felt like early August. Local workmen were perched high upon scaffolding as I rolled out. They were stripped down and topless. We are closer to Christmas than we are to the previous summer solstice - I think? These dates are made for riding.

Once again the mechanics of the Raleigh Electric continue to amaze me. Somehow I clocked up 44 km/h going down Boundary Road on a 27 kg bike. This is absolutely bonkers.

Up above were big fluffy clouds. These lingered throughout the 40 km ride as I made my way out towards GAWD knows where, but basically around Abberton Reservoir.

It was pretty uneventful. There was an abundance of birdwatchers on the short stretch that crosses over the reservoir. One fella in particular stood out. He wasn’t wearing all the usual camouflage crap. He had bright cycling Lycra on. That’s going to clash a little when it comes to the birdwatching thing, fella.

It then became clear that he was combining his two passions - cycling and birdwatching. One out of two ain’t bad etc.

I had to stop to syphon my own Python about 2 km past the reservoir. The Lycra-clad bird bloke then slowly cycled past me.

“GOOD AFTERNOON!”

Whoops.

Destination Lidl was reached. One pannier was stuffed full of cheapo Lidl Greek yoghourt whilst the other balanced it out rather nicely with some cheapo Lidl lager.

Live to ride, ride to live.

I hate rock. Bailed after one track.

⭐

It’s surprising how much you think you know about Bob Marley when, actually, there’s still more to explore. The obvious tracks leap out here: Get Up, Stand Up, I Shot the Sheriff. but beyond this there’s a lot more of a soulful side to Marley that I’ve not heard before. I’ve never understood why Small Axe isn’t held up as an absolute Marley classic. It has everything: the music, the message, and a masterful delivery. This feels like an album rather than an individual collection of songs. It somehow just all holds together.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Indoor chores and crappy weather conditions meant that most of Wednesday was spent indoors. That’s no place to be.

Late afternoon and the bloody Estuary Wilds skies had cleared. I had cleared out the To Do list of indoor chores.

Hey! Let’s head out for a walk. How adventurous. You know how it goes by now: the usual schlep around the 10 km or so Estuary Wilds circuit.

It was still a little slightly overcast when I set off and incredibly windy. Remarkably however, it was warm.

Rowing had already been cancelled earlier in the day because of the wind. However it still felt like the dog days of August, even though we have October rapidly approaching.

In the AirPods was the latest pub cast from Deserter. It meant I was walking along with endless chuckling. The AI News in particular raised a smile.

There were signs of a particularly high tide earlier in the day, with water still lingering down at the quayside.

I was pleased to be wearing my walking boots and not having the OCD stress of having to clean up a pair of trainers back at base. The conditions were definitely soft to firm.

Dog walkers were out there getting in their last session of the day. I had just enough light remaining to get around my circuit at a fairly steady pace.

I reached Whitehouse Beach. The summer camps and the celebrating sixth formers and other students have long since moved on, although the remains of their barbecues haven’t.

I had a bit of a moment on Whitehouse Beach, taking in the serenity of it all. The shingles all around look like my new garden. Maybe I should just stay at home to have these hippy shit moments.

I think you know where you stand when you see a song title of Prison Sex. Christ, this did my fucking nut in. I bailed after 30 seconds. Unlistenable shit.

⭐