Unfortunately last nights training session\u00a0didn’t go too well. I decided to join the Ystwyth CC Chain Gang, so turned up at Rhydepennau at the prescribed time, met up without about 30 other cyclists and then we split into 4 groups and started off around the Borth loop.<\/p>\n
For a start it was quite a fast pace and I wasn’t sure how long I’d stick with them for, but it didn’t last long anyway. As we came into Borth a BMW convertible driver decided to take exception to us being on the road and veered over to our side of the road tooting his horn and shouting, despite the fact that we had right of way. The guys at the front of the chain had to take evasive action crashing into each other and everyone else piled into them at 25 mph creating a huge heap of mangled bikes and bodies. Somehow I managed to stay upright and didn’t crash but everyone else did. The BMW driver drove off\u00a0leaving us where we were whilst someone else decided to take advantage of the situation claiming that someones bike had scratched his car as they fell off.<\/p>\n
By the time everyone was up and injuries were checked, the next group of cyclists had caught us up, and the Police were called to the scene to sort things out. A couple of bikes and bodies were fairly badly damaged so I decided to head home (not very far from here) to get a first aid kit and return in the car to give those that needed it a lift home. The Police eventually turned up and things were sorted out meaning that the aggressive guy with the ‘scratched’ car was sent on his way and we were taken care of by the Police. At least the guys with broken bikes also had an incident number from the Police which they could use for insurance claims to fix their bikes. I then drove around Ceredigion giving people and bikes lifts home. Not much of a\u00a0training session really!<\/p>\n
I thought for a while that the same was going to be true of my swim this morning. I’d been up since 5:30am on what looked like a glorious day for an open water swim. Chilly at first with the weather station<\/a> in the back garden reading 2.3\u00baC but not a cloud in the sky and very little wind either. I’d planned to meet Nia at 9am for a swim and she turned up on time with the family so we all headed across to the beach. There was certainly a chill in the air and we knew the water wouldn’t have warmed up much yet so there was a little bit of trepidation as we headed over for what was the\u00a0first open water swim of the year for both of us. However, as we approached the beach we were told\u00a0by a coastguard that we couldn’t go on it as the Navy Bomb Disposal Team were there exploding a bomb!<\/p>\n This\u00a0isn’t actually that unusual here as unexploded World War II ordnance washes up or is uncovered on the beach quite often. The Bomb Disposal team are regularly seen around here and I quite often hear the explosions too. This was the first time I’d been prevented from going on the beach though. We could see military personel with helmets on milling around on the dunes and were told that it would be all over and done with within 10 minutes so we decided to wait it out. It actually took a bit longer than that as we sat in the sunshine getting quite cold. Eventually there was a big BANG and a cloud of sand and debris from behind the dunes. The bomb disposal team then had to check it was all safe before we were finally allowed onto the beach.<\/p>\n\n\t\t