"Guys!” Ron complained.
Con and I stopped again to wait for her to catch up.
"Thought you were a hotshot racer?” Con grinned.
"I've not ridden one of these clunkers for years.”
"Excuses, excuses,” I offered with a snigger.

There followed a round of tongue poking and raspberry blowing which gained us some funny looks from a group of Dutch Trekkers. Of course that only exacerbated things.

"Come on,” I eventually proposed, "Or we’ll never get to the kiosk.”
"Slave driver,” Con pouted.

The idea, suggested by Frau T, was that we drop off some of our flyers on the way up. So instead of a straightforward ride we’ve been stopping at pretty much everywhere that’s open up the valley, hotels, the tankstelle – even the supermarket in Mayschoß. Not sure how much use the scattered distribution will be but I guess, as Therese told us, don’t ignore any opportunity.

With that thought flyers appeared on notice boards, in the boxes that the free Radweg guides live in and thrust in anyone’s hand that would take one. I guess it’ll be one of those ‘hidden’ jobs that no one tells you about – maybe we can convince someone to do it for us in exchange for a würst? Anyhow we resumed our odyssey up the Ahrtal, eventually reaching Altenahr best part of three hours after leaving the bakery.

 
"Oh cool!” Con enthused from around the front while I tackled the entry to Fort Knox.
"What?”
"The furnitures here.”

Good news indeed, I guess the ‘old boy’ network thing does have its uses. Ron headed around the building whilst I finished opening up, I primed the coffee machine before going to investigate myself. I wasn’t quite sure what we were getting so I was well surprised when I turned into Gab’s Garden.

"Wow.”
"They’re all locked together,” Con advised, "You see a key inside?”
"Er no but there again I wasn’t looking for one either.”
"I'll go look,” she told us already heading that direction.
"These must’ve cost a cent or two,” Ron opined.
"No kidding,” I agreed surveying the stacks of chairs and tables.

When I'd originally suggested the ‘garden’ I'd imagined we’d have either the ever popular wooden picnic benches or the horrible but practical plastic garden stuff. But this, well this is class.

"Ta da!” Con sang, "On the hotplate, did you put the coffee machine on?”
"Yeah, not coming all the way up here and not have a coffee, keys?”

She lobbed me the keys and we quickly had the furniture freed of its shackles and a set positioned on our gravelled apron.

"Could do with a cushion,” Ron suggested as she tested out one of our cast iron chairs.
"Never satisfied, coffee?”
"Espresso?”
"Con?”
"Er usual please garçon.”
"Cheeky moo.”
"Think you’re right Roni, cushions.”

I left them discussing soft furnishings and went to work my magic with the WMF 5000 – well press the buttons at least.

 
I sat back and closed my eyes, the warm sunshine adding to the relaxing atmosphere. Oh there’s passing traffic, the Express even but tune those out and the void is filled with birdsong, the gurgle of the river and the rustle of leaves. Aaargh, re-lax-ing.

 
"We need to get back Gab’s,” Ron advised.
"We do?”
"This dinner thing?”
"Damn.”

Its not so much the dinner, far from it, we’ll have a good nosh, no its having to go a la ‘Pollinaris in that damned team dress.

 
"Why can’t we just wear ordinary stuff?” I moaned for the umpteenth time.
"Because,” Dad repeated.
"Hold still,” Mum added giving my head a firm twist so she could complete the French plait my locks were to be contained by this evening.
"Ow!” I exclaimed as she stuck a hairgrip into my scalp.
"If you’d stop squirming i’d’ve been done by now.”

 
Of course what you’ve missed is the whole afternoon. After washing the cups and re-stacking and locking the furniture we departed the kiosk as the bahnhof clock hit one o’clock. Unlike the uphill journey returning to Dernau was a much swifter affair even if Ron was riding the brakes – okay the hub brakes on our steeds don’t exactly stop you quickly but even so.

Anyhow, when we got back to Bond Acres it was to be greeted with the northern contingents hired minibus, bikes and bags stacked all over the place and of course enough riders and helpers to er, make up the team. The chaos continued for some time until Sonja, Gret’s mum that is, suggested the visitors decamp to their accommodation so they could get ready. Which left the normal occupants of the Bond household alone to prepare for the bean feast.

 
"We going in the Hymer?”
"The A,” Dad replied, “unless you fancy walking up from the river.”

Oh yeah, we’re eating at Der Mühle – I guess George doesn’t want to splash too much dosh – maybe me an’ Con should put in a quote!

"Well I'm not walking when we can park my car behind the restaurant,” Mum pronounced.
"You can ride in the camper tomorrow,” Dad promised.
"Geez Gab, what’s the fascination?” Mand asked returning from fetching her bolero style cardi – it’ll probably be cool when we head home later.

 
Ting, ting, ting!
The general hubbub in the room died down, George waiting for quiet before speaking.

"Ladies, gentlemen. Some of you I see regularly, others less often but I consider you all to be equal members of the Apollinaris cycling organisation. I'll keep this short, I can see the staff are waiting to feed us. So enjoy yourselves tonight, not too much.”

That raised a few chuckles.

"Tomorrow up at the ring we need to make a good impression, our headline sponsors will be watching but its our home event too, I'm sure there will be plenty of local support. So good luck, prost!”

We all raised our drinks and replied in kind.

 
Josh stuck a finger in his collar to try and loosen it a bit, "Coulda done without all the fancy keks like.”
"You should try these frocks,” I shot back.
"Ah’ll leave that to youse man, y’all look fair canny ta me like.”
"What’s he say?” Kat asked.

Oh yeah, its obviously not just the riders here tonight, Mike and Pet are here somewhere too, Kat’s sort of part time of course.

"Something about us looking nice I think,” Mand whispered down the table.
"Aw man!”

We descended into silliness, Josh an easy target for our humour. Eva and co had done us proud again, nothing too heavy, summer minestrone to start, beef strips, boiled rice and veggies followed by strawberry sorbet. For such a collection of lean individuals a lot of food was consumed, liquid too but the alcohol was noticeable by its absence.

 
"People!” Dad’s tone suggested he was after our attention, "Thank you. we’ll have the team talk up at the ring in the morning but I'll just run through the programme tonight as its a bit different to usual. So after breakfast I'll drop Gaby and Amanda at the hotel and you’ll ride up to the circuit together, Dieter will follow in the bus whilst Angela and Sonja will go with me to the circuit – we should be set up by the time you arrive.
The senior women start ahead of you, you’ll be about fifteen minutes behind starting, its a big circuit so its unlikely you’ll conflict.”
"Why the ride up?” Tal asked, "I mean we usually use the turbo’s.”
"I think you’ll be more relaxed with the road ride, its likely to be noisy and chaotic at the circuit. Anyone else?”

There was an exchange of looks and some shoulder shrugging but no comments.

"Okay, we shan’t be staying long tonight, try to get a good nights sleep,” Dad concluded.

 
"How far is it up to the circuit?” Gret asked.
"Took us about an hour and three quarters yesterday,” Ron offered.
"That was from Dernau,” I pointed out, "Its about thirty K from your hotel, I can do it in just over an hour.”
"Hour and a half for normal mortals,” Mand suggested.
"Some warm up man,” Josh mentioned.
"The last bit is sort of like the circuit,” I offered.
"Well hilly,” Ron supplied.
"Its not that bad,” I tempered, "We’ve ridden worse.”
"Some of us haven’t done any real climbing for weeks.” Tal stated.
"Its no worse than the Schwarzwald.”
"And that was soo easy,” Gret noted.
"Ma legs oor aching jus’ thinkin’ aboot it like,” Josh added.
"We’ll only be riding tempo.”
"Where’ve I heard that before,” Mand stage whispered to the others.

 
"Really Dad, why are we riding up tomorrow?” I queried as we followed Dieter and the others out of Ahrweiler.
"What I said, I want you all relaxed.”

Mum gave him a look.

"Why tomorrow, why not at Hamburg or Celle?” I pressed.

He didn’t reply immediately, had he heard me?

"I said...”
"I heard you kiddo,” he interrupted. "This goes no further right? Amanda?”
"Guides honour.”
"Gab?”
"Whatever,” I agreed.
"You’re riding up so the others aren’t surprised in the race, to be honest I'm a little concerned with how they’ll manage. there’s a lot of climbing tomorrow and the Greta and Thalia in particular really haven’t got much climbing in their legs this year.”

I guess that's really telling it how it is.

"So we got a plan?”
"Crossed fingers?” Dad proffered.
"Seriously?”

Dieter tooted his horn when we reached our turn before continuing up the valley.

"I'm still working on it, I needed to speak to Dieter before getting too stuck on a plan. Its my own fault, I should’ve scheduled some more challenging stuff for them.”
"We’ve still got Ron and Josh is a monster,” I promoted.
"Lets hope that's enough.”
We swung in behind the Hymer and Dad cut the engine, "Not a word in the morning right?”
"We said,” I mentioned before climbing out and following an unusually subdued Mum up into the house.

Maddy Bell © 04.03.17