The morning mini-shower past, the wind not too bad, good cycling weather saw a healthy gathering at Nonsuch Park on Saturday. The short ride was to Oaks Park, which is one of our shorter ones, so to make up for this Nigel led the longer ride to Cobham, which is just about the furthest we can hope to travel at Beginners' pace while leaving at two and meeting the target for returning in time to get home, have a shower, get an Indian takeaway and watch Strictly. Especially allowing for all the talking; some people seem to think that Saturday rides are for socializing and enjoyment!
There were some fourteen of us and we used the route past Ewell West and through the path beyond Bakers Field Close. A few times round the roundabout at Southfield Park so that we could regroup but when we hit Christ Church Road the leader took a cue from some of the group and we went at a fair lick. Loraine's chain problem was swiftly sorted and we took a traffic-friendly route around Oxshott, up Broomfield Ride past the posh houses and down Steels Lane, and came into Cobham along Stoke Road, arriving for coffee in The Medicine Garden just before they closed. Sadly, Steve W's message did not get through to the leader quickly enough; he had mistimed his usual last-gasp arrival at Nonsuch and was trying to meet up with us!
Back past Squires at Stoke D'Abernon, along Randalls Road into Leatherhead and home through Ashtead, down the hill behind Epsom Hospital and past Epsom Sainsbury's.
The pace was a little hot for a Beginners ride (my Strava did not break for coffee so I can't be exact) but it was fun and the speed had the advantage of stringing us out along the road so there was room for the traffic to overtake. Corner-marking was generally good. There being a considerable difference in pace between the front and the back, especially on hills, Godfrey did brilliantly as the self-appointed back-marker and caused us to think that perhaps one of the rest of us should have volunteered for that task on the way home.
There have been a couple of longer longer rides in recent weeks and at door-to-door 56.6 Km this outdid by a couple of hundred metres Godfrey's own splendid ride to Pilgrims on 6 July, which was conducted at 17.5 kph. We got back to Nonsuch just before six.
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