Beddington Biggles, to Elmers End; Saturday 18 October.

The trusty regulars met for the year's last British Summer Time ride from Beddington Park on Saturday but we had a new member to welcome, who goes by the name of Biggles.  Biggles does not need to join Cycling UK, nor pay a subscription.  Although he never answers back nor comments unfavourably upon our choice of destination Biggles does, it seems, need some careful handling and apparently needs to learn to do as he is told.  But he is a joy and a source of never-ending conversation for his proud owner and, frankly, a source of relief to the rest of us, who have watched his owner stubbornly fight atrial fibrulation up hills which we could see more than he, were no longer advisable on a push bike.  Biggles is, of course, an electric bike, splendidly scratchless in a colour his owner describes (obviously not within earshot of Biggles himself) as "metallic turd".

So; Maggie, Paul, Roger, Anna, Sharon, Ken and Biggles got going (because the temperature was such that one needed not to stand around too long) along a mutually agreed route, safe for one who is used to riding an ancient contraption assembled, like Frankenstein's monster, out of the parts of previous entities and held together by string and elastoplast, to get used to a spanking new state-of-the-art machine with afterburners, an adjustable seat and, I dare say, climate control.  

In short, to Elmers End, where the coffee and cake at Branching Out are so good that I must contrive some day to end a Wednesday ride there.

As if the motorists of Croydon were aware of the significance of the situation, they were all unbelievably helpful, stopping and letting us out, or across, at turn after turn.  And only on Shirley Road did the impatient hoot the driver who delayed them all of twenty seconds in making the generous gesture.

It was a dream, a dream that will be etched into the memory for at least a week.  So enthralled were we all that we nearly forgot to take a photograph.  And what would a ride report be without a proper photograph?  This one taken where the women in the group found a bunch of wild flowers growing.  The colour of Parma Violets.  Cyclamen, apparently.  

Cyclamen (and cyclawomen).  But Biggles was too shy.