With Woodini and the Captain co-leading this medium ride for Ninja Steve, the smell of debacle was never far away. After some petulant argument as to who was going to lead first, Woodini, with some panache, led eight of us two and a half miles to the first mess up of the day as he cycled up the slip road to the M25 instead of the parallel Willets Lane. Having got over this initial blip everything was OK to the morning stop where Terry was waiting for us. Post morning break we headed for lunch, only to discover on the far side of Beaconsfield that Geoff and the Captain were missing. We hung about for a bit trying to contact them by phone without much luck. David went back to look for them and then for some strange reason, a few minutes later, Jim decided to do the same. Woodini finally got hold of the Captain who had had a puncture and was heading to the lunch stop with Geoff via another route. David returned to say he couldn't find them but we knew why. We were about to set off when we realised Jim had not come back. We waited for about a day then decided to carry on without him. A garbled call came in from Jim saying he couldn't find anyone and was going to the Ugly Duckling. The rest of us were reunited at the Harte and Magpie where we found the Captain repairing his Old Miser brand inner tube (the ones with more patches than Granny Grumps best winter patch quilt). Post lunch things went more or less o.k. except the Captain was tail ending from the middle of the pack before clearing off and Woodini abandoned the rest of us at the Ugly Duckling (no sign of Jim).
All in all an excellent contender for Ann Havlin's Pig Ear award however, having said that it was a very nice day out with the Loiterers on a bright, cold and slightly windy day.