Saturday ride

Jane is in Ibiza, so I decided to go out with the club. Because of the hay fever I'm not fit enough for the Alphas, so I went with the B+ guys. It was good to see everyone again. The B+ was: me, Ken Dolman, Paul Gadd, Jack, Toby, Gary Smith, Keith a Scots guy who is working in the area and fancied a ride, and I think, a Dave :)

I met them at Bookham, so it's a good ten miles to the start, and we set off over to Boxhill to meet Gary. If I'd known I'd have stayed in bed an extra hour...doh :) I thought that we were heading for Godstone but, it had been changed to Four Elms

. Four Elms has become the new favourite for the time being :) It's a relatively flat ride with lots of gentle rises. The way back is the same as me and Jane did a couple of Sundays ago, featuring the nice off road sections :) Me and Paul Gadd pushed it a bit here daring each other to go faster and faster in the loose gravel and giggling with fear and anticipation of gravel rash hehehe. We regrouped and wended our way through the lanes past Redhill Aerodrome to South Park, where Jack started to push it a bit. It often kicks off at this part of the ride, so this was the selection today - Me, Jack, Paul, Keith and Ken. Jack then kicked hard up Flanchford road, a 1km long steady drag. (My chest was feeling a lot better today, which sort of showed that my legs were'nt up to much :)) I pulled everyone back to him as he slowed, at the top there is a short sharp potholed descent onto Trumpets Hill a steady rolling descent of a couple of km's. Jack eased on the potholed descent and I went past and let it go. I looked back and I was 200 metres up, so I put my head down and pushed. Another look and I could see that Paul had jumped clear and was closing. I eased a little to let him get on to work together. By work together I mean that after a minutes rest, Paul came through and I hung onto the back for dear life :) I could see Ken was trying to get on the back and he almost bridged as we got to the blind right hand bend at Wortham Lane, but of course there was a car coming down the hill :) That threw us wide and braking hard I was stuck in a big gear for the hill, it took everything for me to catch Paul going up there and Ken couldn't get across. At Betchworth we sat up and waited. Great fun :)

A good 120km on the bike.

Tuesday othg ride

Barnes Green High Street 1955.

Today's ride was to the dreary Barnes Green tea stop, but Gary choose a much longer and very enjoyable route to get there. We had started out a little late waiting for everyone to arrive, as everyone was edging their bets against whether we would get any rain :) As it was we had a few spots and nothing more. Because of the late start and the longer route we didn't arrive at Barnes Green until one o'clock. I had to be back for a three o'clock patient.I grabbed a quick coffee and teacakes and set out alone leaving the others to enjoy their lunch. It's a little bit lumpy and at one point I have a hike a bike section through the railway underpass, so I was amazed to average 30kph on the way home.

Sundayriders Sunday ride

Today we did a nice steady road ride to Four Elms near Westerham in Kent. I always like to get back on the road this time of year because the countryside is so beautiful. While at the moment the off road is very dry, it's a little bit claustrophobic and dark because of the very dense canopy of trees this time of year. We followed a route on the gps that I'd recorded from one of the Tuesday rides. It was the flattest route in the area gently rolling through open farm land of corn and maize, just needed a few sunflowers to add a bit of yellow to the forty shades of green :)

The gleaning 2

Today we did a little ride around Epsom because I had a neighbourhood commitee meeting about the Eden Project 'Big Lunch' next weekend.

On the way back we saw some cherry trees in the cricket ground......mmm :)