Coast to Coast - Downs to the Severn Sea

This morning, I made an early start from Marlborough, beginning the next stage of my Coast to Coast adventure.  A good breakfast, then through the archway of the Castle and Ball car park, left along the High Street and left again at the old Town Hall, starting the climb that leads to Hackpen Hill.

The climb isn't very steep, but it is long, five miles odd to the top, which is unusual in England.  Geoffrey Shields and I rode it one spring day, and were entertained by the signs warning of ice.

The signs didn't mean much then, but they were of much greater moment early on a February morning, and I took things very carefully,  particularly on the descent.

Hackpen Hill is the highest point of the English part of my journey.  At 269m it's higher than Titsey Hill by 2m, not a lot, but things will be very different when I get in to Wales.  Anyway, it was very blowy on the top, the beginning of a strong head-wind that didn't change much for the rest of the ride.

There's a White Horse on the North side of the hill, not much of one, and quite hard to see.  It's a bit of a youngster, as these things go, apparently having been cut by a local publican to celebrate Queen Victoria's coronation.

Onwards across the plain to the West of Swindon, then following the ridge to Malmesbury.  The developing custom of this ride is to vary the route to take in Winged Wheels, and this was quite a good one - The Smoking Dog.

This may be the last of the trip, as there are very few Winged Wheels in Wales, and none reasonably near to my route.  There'll be other chances.

Steadily onward, crossing Fosse Way and heading in to the Cotswolds.  Some more climbing, still in to the wind, then, just by the Beaufort Tower, my first glimpse of Wales.  All downhill from here, then...

No, but not too difficult, either, and I rode up to the Severn Bridge Viewpoint at about half past twelve - very good going.

So there we are.  I rode back down to the waiting car, popped the bike in the back, and Maggie and I went to the White Lion in Thornbury for lunch.

Here's a cross-section of the ride across England.  250 miles, give or take, and just over half of the  journey is done.  The next stage will take me to Cardiff, where I will be properly in Wales.

A brief e-bike note on today's performance.  There was a strong head-wind, with quite a lot of steady climbing into the wind.  I was on the motor for a lot of the ride, which was fine, but it consumed a fair bit more power.  I had about 35% left after 56 miles, which is quite a contrast with the Lenham to Carshalton stage, roughly the same in terms of climbing and distance, where I had 55% left.

So, climbing fast into the wind takes a lot of power, eh?  Who knew!

Mark

Author: Mark G

B Group - 5th February

We're off to the King William IV in West Horsley for lunch. On the morning ride we will encounter a busy road, a narrow muddy track, a bumpy road, a longish stretch of moderate climbing, down a bit then a short, sharp little gut-buster before cruising to our destination.

Be good and remember to separate into bunches of six to make it easier for motorists to pass us.

A pretty short afternoon ride will skirt around Cobham to Tea in Esher at Garsons Farm or G!ro Cycles perhaps.

The weather should be reasonable, not much prospect of rain, cool to start out but temperatures ramping up to 7 or 8°C.

See you in Cobham

~ Tim

Author: Tim C

A Group – 5 February

Our ride from Cobham tomorrow takes us to the Royal Oak, Chart Lane South, Dorking (www.royaloakdorking.com) with a couple of gentle climbs on the way. We will be leaving Cobham on the track across Bookham Common, which has a couple of muddy patches, but much pleasanter than the drag up to Effingham. The rest is on road. One more gentle climb after lunch.

Author: Dave Vine

2019 Photo competition - Last orders please

Further to the great popularity of our photo competitions since we went digital we invite you to take part again this year.

Please submit your photos before the end of January. Oh, all right, I'll accept a few more if you can get them to me in the next couple of days!

Please use this method for sending photos to us:

Visit this website: "Competition Dropbox" and follow the instructions to choose and deliver your photos.

N.B. When using this website to post photos to the Dropbox it is not necessary to sign up to, or log into Dropbox even if you are invited to do so.

Once you have selected one or several photos fill in your name and email address then click 'Upload'.

Send an email to me, Tim, to provide information about each photo:

             the photographic category
             the photo filename (e.g. P1040276.jpg)
             a caption which we will inscribe on your photo

The rules and categories are simple. The full 'Competition Rules' document is available under the 'Information Hub' heading on our website.

Competition Period: Photos taken during the 2019 calendar year.

Your photos must all illustrate a connection to cycling by depicting a bicycle for example, or some obvious cycling association.

You may submit two photos in each category:

        6.1. Male      one or more male cyclists
        6.2. Female    one or more female cyclists
        6.3. Action    cyclist(s) in action
        6.4. Scenery   scenery or landscape
        6.5. Building  buildings, architecture
        6.6. Humorous  funny or amusing
        6.7. Group     any mix of male and female cyclists
 
Note that the award for a winning photograph in each category will be given to the photographer who took the picture, not to the model(s).

This method for submitting photos should work with any device (PC, Apple, iPad, iPhone, Tablet or Android phone) but if it doesn't work for you, please let me know so that we can address the problem. It does depend on you being able to locate the folder where your photos are stored. It doesn't require you to install the DropBox app.

~ Tim

Author: Tim C

Hilly 50km - Saturday, 7th March 2020

A sportive challenge. On Saturday 7th March join in the Sou'Westers' well-established Hilly 50 km event: 33 miles of the best of Surrey Hills and 3670ft of ascent, supported by route sheets and maps (available in PDF format), with GPX data for devices such as Garmin.  This is a challenging circuit starting at Ryka’s Café, Burford Bridge and finishing at the top of Box Hill.

Pre-entry is preferable and can be made by visiting:  http://www.swlondonctc.wixsite.com/ctcswlondon/hilly-50k, or Cycling UK events page http://www.cyclinguk.org/event/hilly-50km-2020

Follow the instructions to enter, or just turn up on the day.  Entry fee of £7 payable at the start and all proceeds will go to St. Raphael’s Hospice in North Cheam.  Signing on is from 9.30 am with a start time of 10 am to finish by 2 pm.  This is a challenging unsupported event and riders participate at their own risk.

Author: Simon L

Easy Riders - 29th January

We left Weybridge to go round the town until we got to the cycle path along Weybridge Road and Woburn Hill and turned right at the top to follow the track to Chertsey Bridge. We then followed the Thames northwards to Laleham and right into Shepperton Road / Laleham Road and then left into Squire's Bridge Road. That led into New Road where we turned right into Charlton Lane and into Upper Halliford where we stopped for lunch at the Goat. After replenishment we took Halliford Road into Sunbury where we turned left into Green Street. A short way along there on the right is Hawkewood Road where a tarmac covered pathway begins and takes the rider parallel to Thames Street and ends at Harfield Road which leads into Lower Sunbury Road. This pathway avoids the narrow and hump ridden Thames Street and the frustrated vehicle drivers using it. My thanks to Ray Wren for introducing me to this pleasant route.

We then made our way along Lower Hampton Road into Bushy Park and along to and over Kingston Bridge. While wending our way through Kingston it was suggested that we could stop for tea or coffee at the Bradbury Centre and five of us happily sat down to our second cheap tea or coffee - result!

John

Author: Tim C

A Group 29 Jan - the Leith Massif Traverse

After the mist and rain of recent days, it was a delight to see the sun today.  Massed ranks of Wayfarers descended on Weybridge like a swarm of locusts, consuming gallons of tea and tons of cake, bread pudding and sausage rolls.  Having attending to our figures, we then assembled for a group photo to start the the Midweek Wayfarers' 40th Anniversary celebrations.

Perhaps it was the sunshine, perhaps it was the photo opportunity, or maybe it was the chance to complete the traverse of Pitch Hill, Holmbury Hill, and Leith Hill that attracted 22 A group riders on this memorable ride.  Not many people attempt the Leith Massif Traverse for some reason.  It's hard to say and also hard to ride, but today was the perfect day for it.  A very simple route:  through Pyrford, Ripley and East Clandon to get to the foothills of Staple Lane; regroup in Shere and straight up Houndhouse Road to reach the summit of Pitch Hill. which I believe is the second third* highest road in Surrey at around 775 ft.  The keener riders sped up the hill like a pack of eager whippets, and arrived at lunch well before 1pm, while the rest of us took it at a more measured pace, still arriving by 1pm, so there wasn't a massive queue to order lunch.

The Bull's Head at Ewhurst did a great job, serving delicious food promptly, and we were ready for another photo-shoot before 2pm.  Two hills to go.  Well, two named hills: Neil pointed out that there were slightly more ascents than that.  First we had to go a little way back up Pitch Hill to get to Peaslake Road, a nice traverse with great views to the south.  This was the only part of the route that was wet and mucky, and unfortunately David Jackson punctured here - he sent word that he and Jennie would make their own way home.

From Peaslake we went round the south of Holmbury Hill on Radnor Road; the whippets a bit slower now but still keen.  At Holmbury St Mary it was crampons and oxygen masks on for Pasturewood Road to Abinger Common, then the long drag to the summit of Leith Hill Road: the second* highest road in Surrey at 831 ft, before rounding Coldharbour and descending to Dorking.

I had a few sleepless nights imagining the consequences of taking a group down Coldharbour Lane only to find it closed and impassable at the bottom, but the real heros of the day are Terry Lowe (who wasn't even on the ride) and Mark (who was):  Terry checked it was open on Tuesday, even riding up to Logmore Lane to check there were no further closures further up, and, just in case SES Water had changed their mind overnight, Mark volunteered to ride down to check, then come back and tell us!  Luckily he met another cyclist coming up so didn't have to go all the way.  All was clear for the final enjoyable descent, with eight of us electing for tea and cake at Denbies.

My thanks to Mike Barrett for back-marking, and to Terry and Mark for saving us a possible bonus climb back up to Logmore Lane.  And Mike tells me that the gapping was good today, perhaps due to the climbs, or perhaps we are learning to count to six!  Thank you all for your company and being keen enough to come on a rather hilly ride.

38 miles, 2762 ft ascent

The Traverse itself

* Mark did a bit of research on this and discovered that actually Botley Hill, near Titsey Hill is just in Surrey, and it's higher, at 898ft.   Apologies - an opportunity for another challenge on another day.

Author: Simon L