Open Letter to Mr Disgusted of Wogawoga

Dear Mr Dundee (or should that be Carrot Cake?)

I was most distressed to read of your perturbation at finding yourself unavailable for the Midweek Wayfarer's sporting Freewheel Competition on 29 October 2008. I quite appreciate your sense of grief at missing such a highlight of the cycling calendar. For the March '08 event I too was 'hors de combat' and experienced just those same pangs of grief that you are suffering - inconsolable as at that first lost love. Indeed, I read on these very pages of your undaunted enthusiasm and repeated efforts, alas in vain, to be crowned with laurel and designated the undisputed king of the effortless downhill. How you were so cruelly denied, at first by an agricultural engine of nemesis - and then by a fateful lack of length and distance, outstripped by the unconquerable Terry.

Your only recourse now, I feel, is a Letter to the Editor of the Sou'Wester.

Your sight, however, how can I put this gently, may be suffering the early,rheumy symptoms of those youthful (and maybe later), excesses. For if you pull out your eyeglass, there on the centrefold of the Sept/Oct 2008 edition of the Sou'Wester, is the proclamation on 29 October of a modestly bracketed (FWC) at Dorking, with an invitation to the Easy Riders to participate and show that the hare does not always win. This information was also transferred to the Current Runs List flaunted on the Home Page of the Group.

As for the reason for a bonus freewheel competition in 2008, I have heard it darkly murmured that the regulatory oversight of the FSA was not everything that it should have been - these bonus rides have been getting really out of hand! However, I am reliably informed that a ruthless new Rides Secretary has been brought in from the Private Sector who will tolerate no such laxity. Rules are there to be obeyed. No more bonus rides, no gravy train, no second chances! The days of austerity have come and they are here to stay!

I am sure that you will welcome a firm hand on the tiller.

I hope that these words have enlightened and reassured you. Think of us from down under on 29 October 2008 and wish us well.

Happy Birthday

Jeff