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indexThere was an excellent turnout of 15 riders for the inaugural running of the Fruit Cake Frolic on 3rd March. The weather the previous day had been cold but bright, and the forecast for the Sunday was supposed to be warmer but cloudier. Well let's just say that the cloudier part was accurate, but it did stay DRY, and we were really very lucky to have had a dry day so early in the season.
After the usual last minute mechanical adjustments, everybody got away to a good start, and as always Henry was in close attendance with his support truck, ably assisted by Keith and Andy. Our routemaster was Paul Harris who had planned an interesting 35 mile route, south of the A5, carefully trying to choose the lanes with the least water and mud.
Coffee stop was at the fishing lodge overlooking the lake in Patshull Park. At this point we realised that we seemed to have mislaid one of the intrepid 15, Ron Wright. This at first was quite mysterious as the back up truck had been at the rear of the field the whole way and had not passed anybody. Finally the outcome was that Ron was last seen hurtling off past the whole platoon towards Codsall, instead of turning right on the outskirts of Codsall Wood.
When everyone was suitably refreshed and strengthened by the odd bacon butty we set off on the second half of the route finishing back at the Harvest Moon in time for a good carvery lunch, and finisher's awards all round as everybody completed without needing the help of Henry.
However still no sign of Ron! After giving the matter some thought the consensus of opinion was that it would be better to have some sustinence before setting off on a search and rescue mission. Halfway through lunch in strolled Ron, who had realised the error of his route, and had managed to complete the whole 35 miles on his own (with a little help from passers by) and also managed to jettison his fuel tank en route! A special mention must go to Mark Davies who completed a round trip of 353 miles to join us once more. Thank you Mark and indeed to everyone for helping to make it a really good first running of this event.
First published, April 2002