New Car

Lco has bought a new car, is this where she bought it from?

Sunday ride

No ride yesterday because we had a cpd course in London. Today we rode the DL again, but this time we passed the lake at Cripplegate and carried on until Partridge Green took the back lanes to Camillia Botnar for café and teacakes. We rode back on the road the usual way. We saw lots of pigs and piglets and at the Col De Colgate we saw the kangaroos!! This is where I saw one last year and no one believed me. This time I got photographic evidence :)

Tuesday mtb

today we did a nice steady old Horrod's ride over Peaslake and Pitch Hill to Bramley, back long the DL over Black Heath and to Shere. A nice steady hard ride on firm ground, a couple of gears higher than we have been using :)

Sunday ride

Today we rode some hills. Paul came out too.

We did the off road uppers and downers. All across the escarpment of the North Downs, up one Bridleway and down the next. Until we reach St Martha's hill, where we rode the new single track and then returned riding mainly up those we had ridden down and vice versa. We did discover a bridleway that we'd never ridden before!!

Saturday ride

Today's ride was the second week running that we'd gone off-road to the café at Cripple Gate. We should have been in a Continuing Professional Development lecture, but their loss is our gain :) So we set off in the frost and sunshine for some steady km's. It was a bit muddier and harder going than last week. Jane was almost taken out by a blackbird on the way out. It flew out of the bushes and hit her front wheel, bounced off and resumed flying just before hitting the ground.

At the café we met one of the swrc groups, we weren't sure which but settledon the T group ;-) It was nice to see everyone again.





We had coffee out in the sunshine with some chocolate cake that JD had made for us

Sunday ride

Today was the last ride for Stefano before he has to go back to Italy. We had hoped to do more rides with him but events had overtaken us. We were either Racing, in Ibiza or racing!

Today was to be a steady ride for the legs after yesterday's ride to Cripplegate lake. and it was :) We rode over past Shere to see the church that was used in 'Bridget Jones' and the field where 'Holiday was filmed' then over too Chilworth Manor where the 'Wedding Date' was filmed. Then up to St Martha's Church that featured in 'Canterbury Tales' (doing a bit of research shows lots of things have)





We talked quite a lot about British culture and Stefano felt that we have an inability to state a simple yes or no in answer to any question. We decided that this was true, well....definitely maybe :) He also learned that you can put 'ish' on the end of any word :)



Then back across the North Downs, where we rode the 'Soup bowl of Death' together and then stopped to help a road rider who'd ripped his rear tyre. We gave him some sticky tape and an energy bar wrapper to plug the gap. I asked what event he was doing and he said the 'South Western Spring Onion' doh! I was wearing my swrc top at the time :)

I told Stefano that next year I will put together a 'what appeared in a film' ride :)

Tuesday mtb

We set out half an hour earlier today, because Roger had to home by 12.00. It was around 1'C when we set off and still quite icy on the roads, I wondered if the othg would go out today in these conditions. I'd decided on a steady cross country route of around two hours to get Roger home in time. It was very sunny and soon began to warm up,. We pushed fairly hard and because of the good going under wheel, we averaged 17-18 kph. About 12mph, which is quite fast!!

Hopefully, the weather will hold for the weekend as we are taking Stefano out for a ride.

note: on the ride home across Ranmore Road, I spotted Eric, Kay and Dave riding in the opposite direction on mountain bikes! :)

pen y Fan

This weekend we did a couple of hikes.


Saturday - We went to ascend Pen y Fan, the highest mountain in South Wales. I found an aeroplane, but Jane wouldn't let me keep it :(



The view from Corn Ddu





and Sunday we hiked to Twmbarlwm via the Cwmcarn scenic drive. Some very steep ascents here.

Jane and lco 'chicken winging'up from Cwmcarn :)