B Group - 22nd April

By travelling in circles - so some thought! - we managed 30 miles from elevenses at Shepperton to tea at Squires , Upper Halliford!   First of all we made our way over Chertsey Bridge towards St Anne's Hill via the off road route from Free Park Road to Cowley Avenue. From then on it was Almers road, Lyne Lane into Longcross Road.    Accommodation Road, right and right into Gracious Pond Road, through to Burrowhill.   Instead of straight over, sign posted Windlesham,  I turned right, taking  2nd left towards Valley End.   Once again I did not go directly into Windlesham!  I turned off Woodlands Lane into a delightful narrow lane - Rye Grove - which led us into Hook Mill Lane to the junction with Broadway Road.  From there it only took about ten minutes (I guess) to The Sun - a pub with extremely well priced good food served by two very efficient young ladies!   Some of us sat in the garden whilst others stayed inside.   I was told (I had not counted), that we had 26 riders today so I guess it was a good idea to spread ourselves about!

It was roughly an hour later when we were on our way to Halliford.   Actually, I had planned to have tea at Shepperton Lock but the clouds rolled in and the wind seemed even more keen than during the morning - hence the garden centre became the choice of many (all)!!    The afternoon's route was more direct - we returned to the junction of Hook Mill Lane and Rye Grove where we turned right, then left towards West End.    We passed the Castle Grove pub, touched the edge of Chobham village, turned right then left into Sandpit Hall Road, passing close to Fairoaks airfield.    I then headed along Stonehills Road en route to Chertsey.

As we approached Chertsey Bridge, Frank pointed out to me that our back marker Tony had not been with us for a while!!   Oh dear!!  Frank kindly took the group onto Squires, I made a few phone calls, one being to Terry but he was making his way home but could not get a reply from Tony or Tim but decided to continue after a bit.  Tony and Tim followed Vic and I into Squires where we heard that John Gould had punctured some way back but by the time they got to Chertsey he decided to let the train take the strain!    Unfortunately all the corner markers had waited for some time before continuing!!  Also,I must apologise for the volume on my phone was at its very lowest ????  hence I had not heard calls to me.

Never the less, we had a good day as much due to the company and the very diligent efforts from all who marked the corners and to Tony Hopkins for back marking.   Also, to Vic for showing me a few roads I had not used before last week.  My gratitude to all :):)

Pam :) :)

It was a pleasure to welcome a new rider today, Peter Brown who seemed to enjoy himself enough to want to come out with us again. So keen in fact that he will probably ride with A Group next time!

~ Tim

Note that for the afternoon ride the track shown after St Peter's Hospital is not the one taken by the main group which went via Chertsey Bridge.

Author: Tim C