Sundayriders by Vik

Today I joined vik and his friends for an mtb ride. There was me, Paul,vik,Mark,Linden,orla and Cory.

The Format was very much old style sundayrider rides where we would ride to certain places to ride scary bits, but keep up the pace in between. It was a great ride and i was shown some new and some new ways of joining known trails :)

Saturday swrc ride

Jane's away again, so I headed over to Cobham to meet up with the B plusses. We set out for Southwater, but no one was quite sure of the way. We ended up going over White Down and through Holmbury and an odd way to Warnham. It was a fairly until we hit Bonfire Hill, where a Bob and Jack attacked. I went around them to and pushed hard, at the top I was out of sight!! I didn't think I was going that well!

The return journey was through Horsham! I haven't ridden in traffic for a long time, it horrible trying to ride a group through very busy traffic. I think because I don't drive in this country, I'm not used to it. On the Tuesday rides we do anything to avoid town centres. We dropped into Broadbridge Heath from the north somehow. And then it was the usual way back via the Warnham station underpass and up over the hills to Rusper. We did the usual line out across to Newdigate, I jumped on the first little rise to shake off any of the sprinters ie Jack and Paul :) me, Bob and a couple of the younger guys got a gap. Me and Bob worked it, the other two couldn't come through. I came through just before the sign and Bob sat up to slow the other two and I jumped again for the sign :) Thanks Bob :)

My fitness is crawling back to me. Admittedly there was no Andy or Cliff today, but I know I would have been third if there had :)

wednesday mtb ride

paul, julie and greg turned up today!!! hurrah!

We did a gentle ride around epsom, Paul had a new bike, julie was very strong and greg kept a lookout at the rear :)

Tuesday ride - othg

today was meant to be the trip to Dane Hill, but because of the rain we headed to a new place in Kirdford that someone had heard of. When we got there it was more of a village shop that does coffee. So, no one was particularly happy.

It was a tough ride, no real hills but lots of long drags and lining out on the flats.

Sundayriders Sunday ride

Today was a short one again. We were going to visit Greg in Wimbledon and had to back for the train. We rode the small circuit with Stan's hill, we always hit this hill as hard as we can. Today we went under 5 mins! 4'56" Suddenly, I'm able to get the pedals around and get higher heart rates again.

Recap

After a week of riding in Ibiza I returned to find that the spell of fine weather in the uk had broken. Tuesday was my first wet ride for an age. I was shivering with the cold and wet after the tea stop for a few minutes before the first climb warmed me up. It's been so warm this year that I'd forgotten what it was like to be cold. It always surprises me :)



Today me and Jane did a short sharp set of hills for an hour and a bit.

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 :)