Sundayriders - Sunday ride

The long dry spell came to an end today, but only for a little bit :) A band of rain passed across the south east this morning - a present from Wales of course :) Luckily they kept most of it and we had just an hours worth before we left. This does mean that the warmer westerly's have returned and summer is on it's way....hurrah!

Both the Mighty Dinsdale and Paul turned up today, so it was a proper Sundayriders Sunday ride. We decided on a steady fastish ride, not pushing but not easy :) As we have the Rally di Romagna next week I don't want to do too much. I was also trying out the tyres I'm going to be racing on. I have moved to Larsen TT's after using Hutchinson Python's for these races for the past few years. Hutchinson have changed their catalogue and dropped the Python. There are still a few about but I thought I'd switch now. Both of these tyres are extremely popular on the continent for endurance xc racing, in fact if they're not on one they're on the other :)

So, I decided on one of our 'Cape epic' routes, one of a collection of all weather routes we used to train for the Cape Epic. Out across the Roughs, where the mighty Dinsdale was half-wheeling me most of the way up the fire road until a little bit later when a rabbit kitten threw itself under our wheels!!!! I'm sure they do it on purpose, like we did as children playing 'chicken' in front of the colliery trains up north :)
Rad Lane, almost unrideable some weeks ago was easy today, and only a couple of wet patches up to the windmill at Ewhurst. Almost everything was bone dry still. The rough climb up to St Martha's church was the driest I'd ever seen it, I rode the technical bits out of the saddle! pro stylee :) It was dry enough to big ring it up Water Lane.

We cut across the top of the North Downs way, after a bit of a dig up here, to check on the progress of the bluebells. They need one more week and we will miss them because of Italy. The mighty D wanted to collect some wild garlic, so we headed toward the vineyard. Jane's favourite trail is near here so we had to do it. She was flying! Me and Paul doing our very best to stay with her, I had to take a couple of silly lines to close the gap she kept opening :) At the stepping stones the garlic leaves had gone over a bit and were starting to flower.



All about us the cowslips had suddenly appeared since midweek and were in abundance. Folklore says that fairies hide their gold beneath them. Also Ariel from the Tempest likes to lie in them -


Where the bee sucks, there suck I.
In a cowslip's bell I lie.
There I couch when owl's do cry
On the bat's back I do fly after summer merrily'.....