There went the sun; Nonsuch one-o-clockers to Long Ditton on Valentine's Day

There was romance in the air and overpriced restaurants overbooked when Saturday dawned with - and you'll never believe it - sunshine in the air.

My plot was essentially a selfish one.  First time on a bike since caressing the tarmac two and a half weeks ago, see if the old joints still worked, make sure I hadn't forgotten how to ride, turn up at Nonsuch and if necessary just go home on the train.  

But it went well.  Who doesn't get the odd twinge?  The patisserie in Cheam was packed but we still got a table, Tim turned up for club business and save me a ride, Anna and Roger were there, Nigel rolled up as were leaving, and we all went to the rendezvous at the Mansion.

A veritable throng at Nonsuch Mansion

There a vertiable throng was waiting and Steve was there to lead a ride down south to Brockham.  I assumed, rightly, that most would want to go on his proper ride while Maggie and I decided that a modest paced pedal to Long Ditton would be as far as was sensible.  But Ken, A&R, Sue and Nigel (a fellow casualty, nursing a bandaged foot) slotted in behind Maggie and me, and off we went over well worn tyre tracks through the new safer route around Worcester Park Station, under the A3 tunnel at Tolworth and on to sunny Ditton.

Nice Buns

I didn't think I'd qualify and get past the quality control at the Nice Buns cafe, but there was no age or shape discrimination and they let us all in; they even had red paper roses on the table for us.  So we had a leisurely coffee and made our way back through Surbiton to Worcester Park and thence went our various ways home.

Good company, a lovely day and a problem-free ride.  But next morning the sun was just a wierd memory.  Had it been real or was I dreaming?  Is there really a dazzling orange-yellow fireball in the sky to be seen above the greyness, or is it just a hoax?

Invitation to our 2026 Annual Lunch

CTC South West London Annual Lunch and Prizegiving

4th March 2026 at 12:30 for lunch at 1 p.m.

We are delighted to tell you that Jennie has booked the Ristorante Sorrento (379 Ewell Road, Tolworth, KT6 7DE) for our annual lunch.

This has proved to be a most popular venue for the occasion since our first visit in 2018 and we are pleased to be able to hold the event there again.

The set price for our three-course lunch will be £25.25. This includes a 10% service charge, but does not include any drinks, coffee or tea. This is our menu:

Click on menu to enlarge

Please book by placing your order, and pay in advance by Sunday 15th February.

We expect the occasion will be attended by over 60 members, as it has been in recent years.

Please send an email message to Tim Court with your order for (i) a starter and (ii) a main meal. The waiters will take your orders for dessert after the main course on the day.

The preferred method of payment (£25.25) is a direct transfer via your online banking facility, but we can also accept cash or a cheque. For online payment please ask Tim C for our bank details if you don’t already have them. For a cash or cheque payment please check with Tim or your section representative. For anyone who has yet to pay their 2026 club subscription please consider adding your £3 when you pay for your lunch.

Any food allergies, dietary disorders or Vegan requirements must be notified to Tim when you advise your order so that these details can be noted and passed to the restaurant staff.

All ride leaders please note that your teams should be delivered to the restaurant by 12.30 p.m. so that everyone will have time to buy drinks, chat, and browse the photography exhibition, and settle down ready to confirm orders with the waiting staff.

Thank you

Tim C

The Famous Four discover the NorthWest Passage; Beddington Saturday riders 17 January

It has been freezing or raining for weeks except this week for the club rides on Wednesday and Saturday.  Yet on a coldish but sunny day folk cried off.

Thus there was only the core of Beddington Park riders, the Famous Four, at the Pavilion Cafe but this meant we could go on a ride entirely of our own choosing, and with a full evening diary we decided that good old Elmers End was the place for us; the other option being Merton Abbey Mills, but that would involve slipping and sliding on the saturated banks of the mighty River Wandle.

So we stuck to the tarmac to exit Beddington Park.  The traffic seemed inordinately heavy around Purley Way but otherwise the trip through central Croydon, past the Croydon Stadium and through South Norwood Country Park was fine.  Elmers End, though, was as clogged with traffic as we have ever seen it; no matter, we got to Branching Out, where for the price of a chat with Maggie a lovely fellow vacated his table so we could sit together indoors.

The route home was familiar through Shirley Oaks and we nearly but not quite forgot to take a photo.

On Gladeside, between Elmers End and Shirley Oaks 

It was heading west out of Croydon that it got a bit interesting.  There was an horrendous traffic jam on Waddon Road with several buses in front of us on a busy but narrow road and as there were only four of us we elected to go exploring.  So we took the path by the tramway North from Waddon Park and crossed the Purley Way at the Sainsbury's lights, hoping to find a way through the industrial estate to the Asda car park and Beddington Lane.  We had nearly given up when Maggie saw a path behind the fence and our leader remembered passing the entrance, so we retraced our steps and ventured on this path, which turned and twisted between the car parks and warehouses and spewed us out in Beddington Village.  Thus we had discovered a hitherto unexplored way through territory we thought we knew like the back of our handlebars.  

We were so pleased with ourselves; why go to Majorca or Japan for cycling adventures when such excitement is awaiting discovery on your own doorstep?  We're going to be spending our Summer holiday meandering through the Beddington Park Industrial Estate to seek out any other unknown routes. 

Invitation to take part in the 2025 Photo Competition

During the year of excellent rides in  2025 I know that several of you have taken excellent photos. Therefore please feel warmly invited to take part in the 2025 Photo Competition via this link to the invitation which I have posted on the Wayfarers blog.

The invitation includes instructions on how to submit photos via my Dropbox. 

Yours in anticipation

Tim C

Your 2025 mileage scores please

This is a request to submit your mileage totals for the last twelve months (1st Jan. 2025 to 31st Dec. 2025) for consideration towards the annual awards for the greatest distances cycled. Your scores will be entered into the Big Spreadsheet where, since the dawn of the 21st century, the precious records of your accomplishments in the club have been maturing.

There are two shiny trophies, one for the woman who has cycled more miles than any other woman and one for the man with the highest mileage amongst the men.

And we have a special award, the Mark Roy Trophy, for the person recording the largest increase in mileage over the previous year. So anyone who has posted their mileage for both 2025 and 2024 is eligible. 

To summarise the rules, your miles must have been clocked up whilst riding your bicycle, tricycle, tandem or eBike on or off road. Mileages achieved on turbo trainers, Watt bikes or any other static contraption don't count. We know that this is something of a blow to members who have been riding through virtual alpine landscapes with Zwift or Rouvy but we only consider miles actually, rather than virtually, travelled.

For the competition, contenders for the prizes must be regular riders in the club though we are happy to collect mileage data for everyone who is a paid up member of CTC South West London. And we wish to continue recording mileages for our several members who ride eBikes.

If you are curious at all about how many miles you ride in the course of a year please start recording your distances for 2026 in a diary or spreadsheet.

Just one word of warning; several riders who use a GPS enabled device such as a Garmin, or smartphones running apps like Strava or RideWithGPS have experienced rides when their devices stop communicating with the satellites, sometimes for quite a while, and this can lead to totally unreliable data. So please verify the accuracy of your data. The evidence of this known problem is a long straight bee-line between two points on your ride where you know the road really had many twists and turns.

Fixie Dave's Garmin nodded off for a while with this result!

In my opinion this is not a problem which is specific to Strava or other phone app but is to do with the phone and its own software, memory resources perhaps. This erroneous data can also accumulate if you have hopped on a train with your bike but forgotten to stop recording 😏. Fancy doing that!

Please write to me with your total mileage:

Tim Court (Associate Bean Counter*)

We hope to be able to present the prizes in our traditional awards ceremony at the Annual Lunch, this year on Wednesday 4th March.

A very Happy New Year to you all and if you haven't been collecting your mileage scores please start now, from January 1st, 2026.

The Bean Counters need your numbers!

~ Tim C

*Nota Bene: The Bean Counting committee comprises Mick Arber and myself. Mick's primary source of fun is collecting the weekly attendance scores for Wayfarers and crunching the figures for all groups to identify the winners of the attendance trophies.