Debbie's Race at your Pace medal

Debbie enjoys Pebble Hill

Check out my ride on Strava.
https://strava.app.link/nB6jZ4YTi6
Had a great down hill at pebble Hill . Found Cycling up to the downs v hard got stuck on the last bit I got as far as the stables . The ducks at Walton on the Hill were really nice & Brockham was nice . It’s my longest ride this year . Debbie x

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Searching for wildlife!

What a lovely day for another solo ride to Kew Gardens and Richmond Park via the River Thames.

Bikes out of the Thames!

Star and Garter with Belted Galloways

Managed to get quite a few photos of swans, geese and ducks with their babies! Not a good idea to try and eat a chocolate bar approaching a swan, he thought I had food for him. As I forgot my lunch I certainly wasn’t going to part it! I would be able to go a lot further if I didn’t stop to take some many photos!

Richmond Park

There were certainly a lot more people around today, but probably should go to more rural areas.

31 miles done it total, then came home to do some gardening.

~Sue Bellamy

Group Riding

I am sure you are aware that the government is considering what to do next about the current lockdown, and there may be some announcement next Sunday. However, there is no guarantee that there will be any early change which affects our riding.

The committee is considering what our next steps will be, following government advice and CUK guidelines.

In the meantime the rules are quite clear. No group rides, even informally organised, even with social distancing. Only solo riding allowed. Anything other than solo riding will not be covered by CUK insurance.

I can understand many members are keen to get out on club rides as soon as possible, but please contain your enthusiasm for a while longer. All members will appreciate how difficult this period has been, but will thank everyone for their patience and for keeping others safe. Your wellbeing and the lives of others may depend on it.

~ Dave Vine

In Isolation - cycling reports!

A diary from Ray and Chris who are in isolation - but it hasn't stopped them!

We’ve just finished a 2+ mile walk in the garden on my 100m circuit. I packed up lunch before we left and we’ve just finished it.

As I know several distance points between here and Oaks Park cafe I kept telling Christine where we would be if we were walking over there. 

We are now sitting in the summer house/ gym wondering if we can manage the walk back.

We have Ifit on the treadmill so we did a 24 minute walk round the pyramids in Egypt Sunday. While Christine was doing her 24 mins I did 16 mins on the static bike.

We still like the garden walk , Christine did 33 laps yesterday.

My son in Edinburgh brought home his 2 day old baby Friday so we decided to walk round Edinburgh yesterday. I shared the walking so we each did 25 minutes and We also did 25 mins static bike. We were back home for lunch.

We both rode together today.

We went up to the Chalet in Tadworth 8.5 miles but it was closed.

So we rode back to my friend Steve’s house 6.5 miles.

We had lunch I had tomato soup with homemade croutons and Christine had a tuna sandwich.

We were just about to leave after lunch and noticed we both had flat tyres full of thorns.

We decided to leave our bikes in Steve’s garage and walk home 2.55 miles 41+ laps.

Then like all good stories end we sat down and had a nice cup of tea.

The weather was so good last Sunday we set off from the Grove and walked to Morden Hall cafe ,69 laps of my 100 m track non stop ( I have ridden it so often I was able to tell Christine where we were all the way there).

Luckily  I had parked the tandem behind the summerhouse for us to ride back on, we just wobbled up the garden to the garage.

What did you do in the Great Plague, Grandad?

Well, there was this.........

and my "Right said Fred" moment; honest, guv, I measured the gap on the top staircase carefully before I built the baseboard.  I ended up having to cut off two opposing corners.......

Still, the end result is up there now.  All I need is my grandchildren back.  The boy, Jasper will not be too bothered but the little girl Ava will adore it!

Stravavarius

Just six or seven weeks ago we were seeing our grandchildren frequently and I was regularly supping with my friends and going to church.  On the Saturday we went out on Helen’s splendid all day ride to Fulham Palace, an interlude from building ourselves up for Tim’s trip to Los Picos, which in turn would prepare us for our ride up Alpe d’Huez, after which we hoped the Dieppe Raid would be a doddle.  The next day I went with friends to Manchester's Curry Mile before mixing with 75,000 strangers to watch the Manchester Derby; I was worried that I had booked cycling holidays that meant I would miss two cup finals as my team unexpectedly took a turn for the better.  They played a game on the Thursday behind locked doors but that was in another country and besides .....

Now I am busier than any of our younger family can credit catching up with jobs put aside and life is a day to day business.  My hope is that the supermarket packer who deals with our delivery will one day learn the difference between eating and cooking apples; the daily news is unreal until the statistics involve someone you know, as they did last week, and then the proximity of mortality makes you realise it’s not all just a strange dream.  Cycling almost daily keeps me sane (ish) and fit.  Sometimes it feels like a chore when I start, especially if I leave Maggie behind at home, but it takes only ten minutes before all I hear is the hiss of the tyres on the road and today’s song in my head, setting a rhythm I can try to keep up.  This morning I climbed Pine Walk to Non Piu Andrai from the Marriage of Figaro.  I sailed down Holly Lane with the wind in my ever-lengthening hair and the magnificent opening of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in my head and the opening riff to Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water got me up Grove Lane.

If you ignore the tragedy, there is much to like.  So little traffic that after a quick check you can smoothly swerve away from pedestrians or potholes.  The weather has been kind and there is a new camaraderie amongst cyclists, who almost to a person return a brief nod or a hand signal, sometimes with enthusiasm; hang on, chaps, we are English!  Cycling solo means you can go at your own pace; I was never one for chatting on the road anyway.  But I did not realise how much I would miss lunch in the pub and cake in the cafe, and the chat that went with that.

The least known war memorial in London, on Verdun Avenue, was never busy in the old world

With little else to think of on the road, Strava has changed its role in my life.  Long ago, in March, I used it merely to record the distance I had covered but now I am in danger of enslavement.  Because it can provide a measure of my increasing fitness, it encourages me to ride the same routes.  It has got me setting a distance target for each month and I was so close to making April’s target that I very nearly went out a second time at ten minutes to midnight, just to ride around the block and cross the line.

I have failed to master it properly but it is my only companion when Maggie does not ride with me.  I measure my effort in distance but its graph shows hours spent in the saddle.  Thus April’s curve disappointingly showed me doing worse than in March even though I had ridden a greater mileage; this was because it took me five hours less to complete the greater distance.  Another conundrum; as I pedal down empty hills as fast as my nerve will allow, I improve my average speed.  Obviously, I have to climb an uphill to “earn” a downhill cruise, but is it faster for a cyclist, unlike a runner, to ride a hilly route rather than a flat one?  Unable to iron out the North Downs, I can make no true comparison, but I wonder, if solo riding continues (and it may well have to do for us over seventies) if I can “cheat” by planning routes which go up the dip slope and down the scarp.

Time to spray the chain and check the tyres, Banstead and Farthing Down and Caterham-on-the Hill await my daily visit.  I’ll pass Ray and Chris’ house and as always wave at them in their three month isolation as I go by.  I know by heart every worsening pothole, every little sharp incline, every closed public loo and every deserted coffee stop and pub.  Still, I may be lucky and pass another Sou’Wester; so far, Mark (twice, each time on a bike) and Steve (he was on foot).  Then there was the chap who waved so enthusiastically that he may well have been a Wayfarer.  Sorry, whoever you were, but I was being driven relentlessly up Farthing Down by Jimi Hendrix in pursuit of a better Strava time.