Turf Zone – RamseyBing
The time 11.00 am precisely. 0 points, 0 zones, 0 pph. The round has been reset. A new beginning. And as the famous Goon Spike Milligan once said, what are we going to do now? Should I go for the Scottish country medal and give Drylaw13 a run for his money. Not bloody likely. What about just simply taking a few zones, collecting a few points and enjoying myself? Sounds good. Hmm, what about that Turf League thingy?
Last round I was promoted to League 4, Group 1, and had originally thought about giving chase to the pole position and, hopefully, gaining another promotion to League 3. However, a lack of enthusiasm and a visit from the Trapped-nerve-in-the-back Goblin who stayed for an entire week, put paid to that idea. So, I had to content myself with doing enough to hold my position in the League. And I found that surprisingly easy, just doing my normal turfing.
By the end of day one I’d completed a couple of turfing sessions, first around my local patch of Bonnyrigg, then in the evening, Eskbank and Dalkeith. This was enough to bring me into second place, behind leading turfer BroccoliA-M. The gap has opened up somewhat overnight due to higher pph gains but I’m still in contention with only 600 points between us. The only other turfers I recognise in the group are DoodleDad and Wullie. Not sure about any of the others.
Now, this begs the question, should I continue the chase? Well, I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on the competition and see how to goes. If it starts getting a bit crazy, the gap increasing to such an extent where I’ll need to be turfing all hours, I’ll let it go and try to hold my position in the League same as last month. But one never knows.
Now, voting is now open for Turf Awards 2022 and I’m pleasantly surprised to see that turfer PlanetGary has been listed as a nominee for Turfer of the Year 2022, seems that people do watch my turf video blogs after all. Voting is open until the end of April and winners will be announced at the Bonanza banquet in Umeå, Sweden, on May 20th. And no, I will not be voting for myself. But you can if you click here.
Regular tourists to Planet Gary may recall back on Turf Blog 06-01-23, I installed chunky tyres on the Surly Ogre, a pair of Schwalbe Marathon Plus MTB 29 x 2.25. Having given them a good try out I’m now back to my previous road tyres, Schwalbe Marathon Plus 700 x 47. Looking at my turfing sessions I reckon that about 95% of my cycling is on tarmac, so really, big heavy knobbles are rather unnecessary. Yes, they are great on the rough stuff but something of a drag on the smooth. I’m keeping hold of them though, might need them for the Zombie Apocalypse.
Now, what to actually do today? Top of the list is to grab some points, lots of points. However, I don’t like going out and taking points for the sake of it, I need some purpose. One purpose is simply exercise and another is to improve my placing in the League. But there’s more. I need more bings. I’ve already bagged two local bings, ArnistonBing in Gorebridge and Battlepoint at Prestonpans. There’s one other local bing and that is RamseyBing in Loanhead. So, with the weather set fine all day, a nice cycle out to Loanhead is in order. That would leave me with just another two bing zones for my unofficial Bing Bagging medal.
Before setting out I checked the turf app for activity. And lo and behold guess who is turfing Bonnyrigg. Yes, you’ve guessed correctly, turbosmith. I wait a while to see where he’s heading and it soon looks like a loop of Bonnyrigg. Fine, I was thinking of doing Rosewell first, then Roslyn, Loanhead, Shawfair, Danderhall and home. Of course, not long into my cycle I see a turfer approaching from the rear, at warp factor 10.5, obviously. Yes, it’s turbosmith on his e-bike.
Turns out he’s doing the El Staminatore, 200 zones within 24 hours and is getting those final few zones he requires. So, off he zooms ahead of me. Perhaps he isn’t aware of the term “blocking” but I’ll let him off this time for his El Staminatore. We talked about e-bikes a little and he mentioned the term Nm (Newton meters) in relation to the motor, something I’ll need to investigate.
After a very enjoyable 33 Km (about 20 miles) cycle taking 76 zones, my points had grown to over 30,000 giving me a lead over BroccoliA-M, who is now in third place, having been overtaken by turfer krombe with over 21,000 points. Still, early days yet and 9000 points difference can vanish in a few hours, and with still another 33 days of the round to go, anything can happen. Interesting to see my position in the Scottish League. Don’t think I’ve even been so high. Guess I’ll not stay there very long. Bye for now.
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