Previously...The male clientele of the Boilermaker's Arms, at the urging of pub owner Exeter Montgomery Cashew, are re-creating the little-known Jerome K Jerome novel "Three Men On the Bummel", a bummel' being a meandering bicycle ride. Now read on...

"I don't know about bummel," complained Graham the Gasman, his legs pedalling like billy-o as he struggled to get the rusting old Raleigh Chopper up the steep hill, but this saddle's absolute murder on my..."

"Time for a break," called EMC loudly, expertly dismounting from his penny farthing. "Boris, the luncheon."

Boris steered his butcher's boy bike to the scrubland at the side of the country lane and eased himself off, emptying the basket of its supplies and spreading them on a tablecloth on the wild gorse.

Barrington, who had been turning figure of eights in the road ahead, coasted back towards them as your humble correspondent puffed up from the rear.

"My, what an enervating morning!" boomed the Thrope, the resting actor. "I have never felt so alive!"

"I feel half-dead," gasped The Scribbler. "I knew this was a bad idea."

"Nonsense," tutted EMC, wrenching the cork out of a bottle of Semillon Chardonnay. "Look at that vista!"

Obediently, the assembled pals followed EMC's outstretched arm and gazed at the rolling moors mottled with the shadows of clouds, the windswept hils which sprouted with purple heather, the hazy clump of Bradford which lay far below them.

Graham the Gasman bit into a pork pie and nodded. "It's a fair view, I'll give you that."

"It's nothing short of a miracle," insisted EMC, getting all theatrical. "It's the work of a benign God, all this beauty."

After spending what felt like the appropriate time marvelling at the beauty of the world, they all tucked into the wine and savouries, and by the time they'd finished they were rather the worse for wear.

"How many bottles of wine have we just got through?" inquired EMC from behind a squint.

Boris the Landlord did a quick count. "Eighteen," he said. "Although I can see two of you, so that must mean nine bottles, really."

"That's an impressive basket on that bike," said The Scribbler. "Nine bottles and all this food."

Boris nodded sagely. "It's a family heirloom. It's been passed down to all the first-born men in the family. It belonged to my great-grandad. He carried three wounded men to safety from the mud of the Somme in that basket."

Barrington checked his watch. "If I recall correctly, the definition of a bummel is a journey which one can complete in the same day," he said. "Which would mean, unless we are to camp in the wilds, then we should think about returning back to town soon."

All the cyclists were rather less sure of themselves as they mounted up, particularly EMC on his vintage penny farthing.

"Whee," said Graham as they got up rather an impressive speed on the downward swoop of the deserted road which cut through the moors.

"Erm," said The Scribbler, though no-one could hear him. "We're going a bit fast, aren't we?"

"Push on! Push on!" roared Barrington.

"I do confess to not feeling my best, at this altitude," whimpered EMC.

"And I think my brakes have gone," reported Boris.

The jolly boys' outing was about to take rather a turn for the worse, The Scribbler feared.

To be continued...