Sorry all B-Groupers, I made a mistake typing out my e-mail address for the ride invitation for Wednesday. I have now corrected this on the original invitation but my e-mail address should have read
Paulandrewjames1949@yahoo.co.uk
Thank you Francis for alerting me.
If I have received your request to join the ride I will have briefly replied by e-mail. So if you have asked to join the ride and have not had a reply please let me know of your intent to come.
Two alternative 20% discount codes are available for ferry crossings, one for over 60s, on any crossing (as far as I can see) and one for any age but on specific crossings. From the Dieppe Raid/Tour des Trois Vallees Facebook page:
20% discount code for booking DFDS ferries now issued. The wait is finally over
! The code is LTV26.You are invited to join me on the ride from Cobham on 1 July
We are going to go over Great Bookham Common to Chapel Lane, down to the Steeping Stones, across the A24 to climb Little Switzerland and then through Walton, Tattenham Corner and Banstead to the Woodman at Woodmansterne.
After lunch everybody except Fixie can just take the feet off the pedals and coast down through Cheam and Worcester Park, past Berrylands to Kingston Church for tea.
There's a few ups and down in the morning but Little Switzerland is the only fruity climb.
The current draft of the route can be found here. It is subject to what we find on the recces on Friday and Monday; a final version will come out with the running order on Tuesday.
No pre-ordering for lunch. The forecast is for gentle, cooling snow.
Please let me know by e-mail before Monday bedtime if you would like to join me and the team of super-trained, expert sub-leaders.
Paulandrewjames1949@yahoo.co.uk
In accordance with club guidelines, the ride from Egham has been cancelled due to a Red weather warning being in place for extreme heat on Wednesday.
This applies to all groups (A & B) that were due to start from Egham.
Wednesday’s ride is from The Manor Farm Day Centre in Egham.
It is 22 miles to lunch at the Sip & Spoke Cafe in Warren Row, no pre-order required. After lunch it is 27 miles to tea at The Ferry Cafe in Shepperton. It’s a flattish route overall with just 490 metres (1,600 feet) of elevation all on tarmac. There is a short section on a surfaced path around Dorney Lake.
We will be going through some delightful lanes and villages of Berkshire so I hope you can join me.
Please respond via Spond if you can.
The route and sample menu is attached to the ride in Spond
You are invited to join the B group ride on 24 June. We will be starting at the Egham Manor Farm Day Centre (TW20 9HR), which is not far from Egham station for those who don't want to ride all the way out. The route will take us through Windsor Great Park, Sunninghill, Ascot, Fifield and Windsor to lunch at the Waterman's Arms across the bridge in Eton. No need to pre-order (or put on your starched Eton collars).
The afternoon ride back is shorter and more familiar, and will include the Thames path from Staines to Chertsey, ending at Walton Marina for tea (or, as I would recommend in the warm weather, their home-made milk shakes).
Please let me know (shfhickey@gmail.com or text 0798 344 5252) by Monday pm if you'd like to join.
The weather outlook looks good, and we look forward to seeing you!
Stephen
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference”
Robert
Frost
I was a bit worried when we only had two takers by Sunday night but Banstead never draws the biggest crowds and we had more by deadline time. Then there was the forecast rain. Sure enough there was a steady drizzle by the time I left home but it was not at all cold. I toyed with the idea of saving time by just putting shampoo in my hair and shower gel on my top half and cycling up to Banstead in nothing but my bib but decided that it might cause too much of a stir at the Community Centre and lead me to fall out with the rides secretary.
Then I remembered the last time we were at Banstead when it drizzled like this and we all but drowned in the Surrey Hills. But this time the drizzle never got too serious and everybody turned up who said they would, and came in the right gear for a rainy morning and a sunny afternoon. So we had eleven starters in two groups, which is pretty good for Banstead on a rainy day, and very good when you consider that I used the dreaded H word in the ride invitation. Well, you can't pretend that Rickman Hill, Southerns Lane or Hilltop Lane are flat and that was not counting Doctors Lane or Furze Lane or a few others. I was relieved to see that Fixie, too, had for once come with the right gear.
In a way, the drizzle was good for us as coolant, for it was muggy and there was a fair amount of up and down in the morning, as can be seen from the profile. My group had Karl, Christina, John A (who peeled off before lunch), Mick and Tim C (who back marked; thanks, Tim).
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Half way up Southerns Lane
The countryside was superb, dotted with ancient houses as we went along the road less travelled and everyone in my group made it up the hills. There is a certain satisfaction in successfully climbing challenges like Hilltop.
To cap our morning our circuit of RAF Kenley coincided with some glider action. On the downside Mick had a puncture so close to lunch that we might have made it to the pub before total deflation had set in had not our official photographer faffed around making us strike embarrassing poses.
The pub was welcoming, the weather by then inviting us to sit in the garden where Mick took his wheel off and worked at the table while the food came and Tim G's group (Julie, Anne, Fixie, Stephen) arrived with stories of their success on the hills and, being gullible folk, we believed them.
They ribbed us a bit about taking our time departing lunch but were unlikely to catch us save for acts of God, such as Mick's recurring puncture just outside Purley Fire Station. Odd this, because the cause of the original was a drawing pin and we could hardly question the expertise of the man who leads our maintenance courses. When he extracted the offending replacement inner tube, however, it was marked with half a dozen scuffs and grazes. He swore it was brand new but upon closer questioning confessed that he had bought it in 1948 and it had been stuffed in a box full of wire brushes for more than half a century. Something like that. He put a new, new one in this time.
The incident meant that we were overtaken by Tim's group, now led by Julie. They passed us cheerily but it proved their nemesis, because we learned their naughty secret. We got going again fairly efficiently and surprised them on the aptly named Hill Road in Purley and could hardly believe our eyes as we rode past; they were all dismounted, pushing their bikes up the hill mumbling some lame excuse about road works. The shame! And one of them in club kit!
Let us hope it never gets out on social media. I shan't tell anyone.
Once we had climbed to the top of Woodcote Village the afternoon was a complete contrast to the morning. Bright sunshine, almost all gently downhill, or flat and bitty long the Wandle Trail. But the highlight was being greeted enthusiastically by the Queen of Clyde Road as we passed her Victorian palace.
We were well within opening hours when we achieved Wimbledon Windmill Cafe. A couple had peeled off home along the way but we survivors all agreed we felt more tired than a mere 35 miles warranted. Interestingly, too, we felt that it was the stop-start, the barriers, dogs and schoolchildren on the Wandle Trail that had tired us despite our breathless morning. Our pleasure of the roads less travelled had surpassed the efforts we had made riding them (or in the case of one team, walking them).
