Cheam & Morden Easter Tour 2020, 10-13 April

If you have enjoyed the Beginners all-day rides this year, you might be interested in joining other Sou'Westers for the Cheam and Morden Easter Tour, organised by Ann Bath.   Beginners most welcome!

We have a hotel booked for next Easter. Staying for 3 nights starting Good Friday 10th till Easter Monday 13th April at the Red Lion Hotel, Milford Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP1 2AN www.bestwestern.co.uk/hotels/best-western-red-lion-hotel

Organised rides on Saturday and Sunday, around Wayfarers B group pace.

The price is £65 pppn db&b sharing a twin or a double room. £12.50 supplement pppn single.  The inclusive evening meal is a 3 course set menu with options.

There is indoor bike storage. Being in central Salisbury, the hotel has limited, chargeable parking (only 6 spaces at £15 per night). There is a public car park nearby at £10/24 hours (Sundays free)

Contact Ann via Simon Lambourn for further information, or talk to any of the many other Wayfarers and Cheam & Morden riders who've attended previously, if you’re interested.

~Ann

All day ride to Godstone - Saturday 5th October

On this ride 13 cyclists started off from Nonsuch Park on an overcast but dry day.

We made our way to Godstone via Wallington, Redham and up to Kenley. On the way one of our cyclists had a problem with her rear mudguard which had broken off, but up stepped Ed to carry out a repair (thanks Ed).

We stopped at Kenley Aerodrome to visit the memorial to WW1/WW2 fighter pilots, service men and women and then we continued to the Rendezvous Cafe on the A22 for our tea stop. I would give this cafe 5 stars for their coffee and all round service.

Ed was debating whether to do a bit of shopping in the Ann Summers Shop!

Enough of that. Onto the N21 cycle route turning off to go through Church Town, where we found our way blocked by a white Roll Royce where a Father and Bride were about to enter the Church.

The lunch stop at Godstone was cancelled as we decided to carry on to Wetherspoons in Redhill. After lunch some of our party left to take the train home. The remainder made their way to Banstead ( nobody wanted to stop for tea) then we all went our separate ways home.

Thanks to Will for back marking and everyone who turned up. That is the last of the all day Beginners Saturday rides for this year. I look forward to next year

Regards,

Tony

Coffee the decider; to Leatherhead on 28 September

Saturday offered a weather window perfect for cycling for those who believed the forecast and ignored the early morning rain.  We had a good crowd at Nonsuch (the usual suspects) and Nigel led the long ride out like a German railway train, rolling slowly away at the precise time with no whistles, no announcement.  Fifteen others spotted the manoeuvre and followed on a ride which was destined for Brockett’s Farm and we took the familiar route through Ewell and the industrial estate in North Epsom, and up the hill behind Epsom Hospital to Ashtead .

Showing decisive leadership (Nigel says), because a couple of the group were coming slowly up the hills, he adjusted our destination.  It might also have had something to do with someone telling him that there was a pleasant coffee stop  in Leatherhead, familiar to Tim and the B Group but unsullied as yet by a visit from Beginners.  So our destination became Charlie & Ginger, in Leatherhead.  Nigel was rewarded for his initiative by some light hearted complaints and by the sign on the pavement blowing over in the stiffening breeze and damaging his front hub.

We broke with tradition after the break by taking a more circuitous route home, past Leatherhead Station and over Ashtead Common the long way round, passing as many dog walkers as possible and taking Roger's lead up a track which offered a long, slow incline rather than the short, steep hill on the north easterly route.  We circumnavigated two roundabouts, twice, so those delayed at the lights could catch up in our search for a flatter, more traffic-free experience and, because the ride was less ambitious than some long rides in recent weeks, returned to Nonsuch within the advertised time limits, though obviously not in time for a coffee at the Pantry, since so to do would require a very short ride.

It was a pleasant afternoon out; thank you, Nigel.

Sou'Wester Shorts,

The club's new online magazine

Dear all,  

as you may have seen on the Wayfarers blog, we are launching a new online newsletter, Sou'Wester Shorts, a digest of news from our various blogs.  It is not intended to replace the paper Sou'Wester but perhaps it will give you access to stories that you might have missed from the other groups, and we also hope to reach some cyclists who don't ride regularly with the Sou'Westers.

After a pilot, we decided to add all Beginners members directly to the mailing list, as it's a bit fiddly to sign up directly.  However you can easily unsubscribe if you don't want to receive it - just click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.  You should receive an email with the latest edition of Sou'Wester Shorts every few weeks, edited by one of the team of Paul James, Dave Vine and Simon Lambourn.   We hope you enjoy reading it, and we would welcome your comments and suggestions.

The Right Gear

Beddington Park Ride 21 September

Ray, Alison, Paul, Colin, Jim, Roger, John, Anna & Ken at Morden Hall Park cafe

Saturday's ride was a fixture on the Wandle Fortnight calendar and coincided with the Bike Fest at Beddington Park. Our regular cyclists had to be steered away from the static smoothie-making bike! However, Maggie and Ray encouraged John, who had previously cycled with the Wayfarers, to join us on our afternoon jaunt. We also welcomed Alison and Jim, who arrived separately with little or no experience of how to use gears.

We therefore decided on the Wandle Trail for the ''changing gear' beginner's ride. Roger ably supported Ali and Jim was given advice by the rest of the group. So 10 of us left Beddington Park and made our way through Mr Funari's garden at The Hack Bridge, now in use as a playground. As the confidence of our newcomers increased we noticed that Ali's saddle appeared rather low and after our tea stop at Morden Hall Park, Roger set to raising this.

We left the Park and the Wandle trail to ride on quiet roads and test our newcomers on some short hills. The benefit of changing gear was generally quickly learnt and before long Colin was leading us through Morden Park. Ali and back marker Anna were out of sight for a short time but Roger returned to find them readjusting the saddle and to lead them back to the group. We crossed Reigate Avenue and went our separate ways at the other side of the park. Ali and Jim returned to Wallington having successfully cycled 21k. We hope to welcome John, Jim and Ali on future rides.

Written by Maggie

Stretch targets; following Nigel to Cobham, 7 September

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.

Sou'Westers Shorts - a new newsletter

We are about to launch a new format email newsletter which we hope will allow more people to see more of what we do in the Sou'Westers.

Sou'Wester Shorts is an email based digest of Sou'Wester stories - a bit like CycleClips - published every few weeks.   It's not intended to replace the paper Sou'Wester, but to complement it with the ability to have web links and colour pictures.  It's compiled by Paul James, David Vine and Simon Lambourn, and the content comes from our existing blogs - Wayfarers, Beginners and Cheam & Morden,.   So you will have seen some articles on the Beginners blog already, but you may not have seen the C&M or Wayfarers stories.  We have been piloting it with a small audience, and we think it's ready for a full launch.

Distribution is handled by Google Groups, which has a list of emails to forward the newsletter to.    When there's a new edition, it gets sent to everyone on the distribution list.   It's simple to unsubscribe (click the link at the bottom of the email) but it seems a bit complicated to enrol at first, so we decided to automatically enrol all the Sou'Westers members.  Of course you can unsubscribe at any time.

We are still learning, so we would welcome your feedback, and we hope you will like the new newsletter; Beginners who are not Wayfarers members should receive their first edition in two or three weeks' time.