The Exmoor Beauty .......... just another Beast

So ........the Exmoor Beauty, a newer, more relaxed kind of cycle event. Enough of the gut wrenching, spirit sapping, masochism of the burgeoning cyclosportive, characterised by the Exmoor Beast. A return to the era of 'a nice cycle out on the beautiful British countryside with mates'. Or so the preride blurb suggested,
Well ........this was no 'Beauty' that I was riding.  And neither were those swearing, panting, grinding, fellow cyclists suffering all around me. This was the Bonkers Beauty, the Hailstorm Beauty, the 22% gradient beauty, a beauty that was so puncture ridden that I had to give a fellow Beautician a spare inner tube and a loan of my pump after he suffered his third deflation. This ride was puncture carnage! Riders crouched behind bushes and hidden in secret countryhome driveways, ashamed that they'd spent too little, and weren't running bombproof Continental GP 4000's. Learn a lesson cheapskates!
So ..... the Exmoor 'Spring' Beast then. £27 spent to be out in the wet, wind and hailstones. Bizarrely. and despite all, a really great day out on the bike and one of a pair of annual 'must do' events - the 'autumnal' Exmoor Beast and Exmoor 'Spring' Beast. 'Nice cycles out in the countrside with mates?' The moor the merrier!

 

A close encounter with a Buzzard.

Out in the hills yesterday and I was amazed by the amount of road kill on the tarmac. A Buzzard! How did he go down? And what a mess! Then a pheasant, followed by a squirrel. Poor fellow buzzard was clearly being attended to by some carrion predator, so I stopped just around the corner to view the return of the lazy feeders. After thirty seconds I couldn't be bothered so rode on, musing on a galleried photographic exhibition of Road Kill Portraits. Why? Because all the heads of the poor victims were completely intact and really quite beautiful - as if they were sleeping. And how often do you get to see a Buzzard close up? Watch this space.