All day ride Saturday 14 March; Fulham Palace

A visit to Fulham Palace is planned for our first Saturday all day ride of 2020. It should be a good time to visit; the palace and moated gardens have been renewed and restored over recent years. There is a cafe for lunch, and volunteers planted out 25,000 bulbs last autumn, so the gardens should look wonderful,(as long as the squirrels haven't raided the beds!)
Meet at Mansion House 9.45 am for 10 o'c start, or Kingston Bridge at 10.40. Have coffee before we set out please. We'll head through Richmond Park via Ham gate, through Mortlake and over Barnes Bridge to follow the North side of the Thames through Hammersmith and down to the Palace. Cycle routes, greenways, towpath and quiet roads throughout. After lunch we'll cross Putney Bridge and head for tea, either Wimbledon Common or Roehampton.
Hoping for a nice day in the coming week to recce this route, and feeling optimistic that spring will be properly underway in a fortnight's time☺.

Magical Mystery Tour; long ride 8 February

It was a pleasant day for cycling, the rain over, the big storm yet to come and the only worry that there was a bit of a breeze and everybody in a car had decided it was their chance for a day out, too.

The rides list said Box Hill or Walton on the Hill for the long ride, so it was into the thrill of the unknown that we arrived at Nonsuch Park on Saturday.  There were one or two unfamiliar faces and it was nice to see Tim, and a few Wednesday regulars. 

The short ride was to Morden Hall Park, which is one of the shortest prescribed outings and has become too familiar to those of us who turn up to Beddington Park each month but there was a lot of chatting and the plan for the day was for leaders to depart like German trains; no announcement, quietly slipping away, you should have been paying attention.  Lynda did it first and then Nigel so that by the time I had engaged my Strava and got on my gloves I was playing catch-up with Sue through the doggie lottery that was Nonsuch Park; clinging mud if you left the path.

It all added to the excitement, especially when you asked Nigel where we were going and he replied with an enigmatic silence.  Mysteriously, though, neither Tim nor Helen was with us.  There were eleven hats at first, ten machines (Rob and Ruth on the tandem) and I ended up self-appointed back marker.  Sue did not really fancy Box Hill (this is the same Sue who did the Prudential 100 and the TriVets 100 miles last year!) and peeled off to do her own thing at Ewell.  We used the Epsom Sainsbury’s route to Epsom but unusually for Nigel, we were moving at a sedate pace.  This suited, for I too felt a bit lethargic and recorded the 8,521^st fastest time ever up Col de l’hopital au centre du jardinage (Wilmerhatch Lane).  At the top, Godfrey went his own way and we were left with Nigel, Lorraine, Alice, the tandem, Steve W and Ken on his electric bike, and new man Chris, out with us for the first time.  An experienced rider, Chris had not been on his bike for a few months.

I expected we would take the Ashtead and Leatherhead route to Box Hill but no, we carried on up the lane, so I assumed it was Walton we were aiming for and we went right and left up the Headley Road until we met the impenetrable barrier that has been Headley High Street for a while.  There we had a debate because Nigel was intending to get us to the bottom of Box Hill from there and take us up the zigzag, but Box Hill had also been closed when I was there on Wednesday and this out-of-date information and the views of the majority persuaded Nigel that Walton was the place for coffee.  Two young women in a car were rude because they felt we were blocking their way, though when they start their driving lessons they will learn how to steer through a gap one and a half times as wide as their vehicle.  Fortunately it was Gentleman Rob in discourse with them.  Back under the M25, up The Bitch and along the Duck Pond sprint to the Village Cafe, which we made half an hour before closing time.  Perfect.

At Nigel’s invitation, I led us homeward, and with the incentive of going out with Maggie to the cinema, at a less gentle pace.  Personal firsts over the Tadworth Sprint and the Tattenham Rollers and the Shawley Way climb, where my unfitness overtook me, along with Steve and Alice, and Nigel and Ken.  Rob and Ruth had fancied the A217, Chris had left us at Tattenham Corner to make his way home to Cobham, Alice and Lorraine split from us at Banstead High Street and the remaining three of us went down past the prison, a dangerous road for speeding now, littered with potholes and poor drains.  Nigel took Ken homewards down Banstead Road South, where I said goodbye.  One more climb for me, Metcalfe Avenue, but by now the cobwebs had blown away and I was in that pleasant place, wind in the face, cruising down the hills with a song in my head, happy to pedal up them.

Altogether a splendid ride.  40km, 427m elevation gain, 14.9Km/h.  Thank you Nigel.  But I still have that nagging worry that we left people behind at Nonsuch.

Floating fruit

4 January Beginners ride to Bushey Park......er, Hampton Court

Beginners gathered at Nonsuch on as fine a Saturday as early January has to offer at 51˚N.  For those of us who had not made the New Year ride it was our first outing of the new decade.

Godfrey led out the longer ride but we had not got further than Worcester Park when Lynda decided that the group was too big for safety and kidnapped the rear half of the group by taking a left turn as Godfrey disappeared over the horizon.

Thus Karen, Maggie, Paul, Paul J, Roger, Anna and John were taken on an enjoyable trip through Thames Ditton to the dIsH coffee shop just across the river from Oliver Cromwell’s favourite residence, where Anna convinced us that the delicious confection in the window was actually called floating fruit.  It is called plum and orange cake, but it is still recommended.

Back down Chessington Road; the falling temperature could not spoil our mood, nor some impatient drivers, but a red headed motorcyclist keen on committing manslaughter had us unnerved a bit on the Ace of Spades roundabout.

Pitch black by the time we got back to Nonsuch; headlights pointed down for the potholes, especially now at the Eastern end.

Happy New Year!   

Invitation to enter the 2019 Photographic Competition

Further to the great popularity of our photo competitions since we went digital we invite you to take part again this year.

Please submit your photos before the end of January.
Please use this method for sending photos to us:

Visit this website: "Competition Dropbox" and follow the instructions to choose and deliver your photos.

N.B. When using this website to post photos to the Dropbox it is not necessary to sign up to, or log into Dropbox even if you are invited to do so.

Once you have selected one or several photos fill in your name and email address then click 'Upload'.
 
Send an email to me, Tim, to provide information about each photo:

•          the photographic category
•          the photo filename (e.g. P1040276.jpg)
•          a caption which we will inscribe on your photo

The rules and categories are simple. The full 'Competition Rules' document is available under the 'Information Hub' heading on our website.

Competition Period: Photos taken during the 2019 calendar year.

Your photos must all illustrate a connection to cycling by depicting a bicycle for example, or some obvious cycling association.

You may submit two photos in each category:

        6.1. Male      one or more male cyclists
        6.2. Female    one or more female cyclists
        6.3. Action    cyclist(s) in action
        6.4. Scenery   scenery or landscape
        6.5. Building  buildings, architecture
        6.6. Humorous  funny or amusing
        6.7. Group     any mix of male and female cyclists 


Note that the award for a winning photograph in each category will be given to the photographer who took the picture, not to the model(s).

This method for submitting photos should work with any device (PC, Apple, iPad, iPhone, Tablet or Android phone) but if it doesn't work for you, please let me know so that we can address the problem. It does depend on you being able to locate the folder where your photos are stored. It doesn't require you to install the DropBox app.

~ Tim

Roy's funeral

For those not familiar with the Clandon Wood Nature Reserve and Burial Site, where Roy's funeral will be held at midday on Monday.

Maggie and I recced the journey and decided to go by car rather than to ride, because of the likely dark and rain coming home.  However you do it, however, beware that our Google Maps erroneously showed the burial ground as south of the A246, and it in fact to the north of that road; this matters because at that point the road is dual carriageway and you can't see the entrance from the other, westbound carriageway.

If, like us, you are driving from the Leatherhead/Great Bookham direction towards Guildford on the A246, you will need to carry on along the short dual carriageway part of that road until it joins (and then becomes) the A25.  At those lights you must do a U turn so that you are going East and back towards Leatherhead along the A246 and the entrance is three hundred yard or so from the turning on that side of the road.  The signposting is not huge until you are actually upon the entrance itself.  It's pretty simple once you know, but it took us at least fifteen minutes of driving, Googling and map-reading to work it out.

Beddington Park ride 16 November

A cold, sad Saturday

The weather was not quite bad enough on Saturday to justify staying in and watching the television, but only Maggie and Paul, Roger and Anna and John turned up at the Pavilion Cafe to meet Colin. Ray and Chris arrived on foot, disappointed at not being well enough to cycle safely. We had thought we might go a bit further afield but Colin tempted us with his offer to lead us to same-old Morden Hall Park by a new route, and that he most certainly did!

Mathematically there is an infinite number of ways to get from one to the other, and the one Colin picked had us finding ways through the car park gates along the industrial estate east of Beddington Lane, crossing the tram tracks to the Mitcham Road, cycling across Mitcham Common almost to Mitcham village at the end, then working our way through back alleys over the Cricket Green, past Mitcham Parish Church, which looks jaundiced with its yellow stone in the winter afternoon, and into Morden Hall Park by recrossing the tramlines at Phipps Bridge.

The National Trust Cafe at Morden Hall Park has changed its modus operandi, in keeping with much of modern life the change is not necessarily an improvement.  We went back along the Wandle Trail, though John chose to do his own thing, and finally split up at Butter Hill.

In memory of Roy, whom we all missed.

Funeral details - Roy Flowers

Roy's funeral will be at 12 noon on Monday 25 November,
at Clandon Wood Natural Burial Ground, Epsom Road, West Clandon, Guildford GU4 7FN. https://www.clandonwood.com.  RSVP - see details below.


As well as being a burial ground, Clandon Wood is a nature reserve with thirty-one acres of wildflower traditional meadowland, lakes, wetland, young woodland and an abundance of fauna. You will not see any vertical headstones, vases with wilting floral tributes or much evidence of other recent burials.  In fact, if you hadn’t come to attend a funeral you would probably not even know you were in a cemetery.

Bearing in mind the naturalness of this special place and the fact that it is November, please come prepared.  Wear flat shoes or boots, bring an umbrella and prepare to take some mud home with you if the weather is inclement. A motorised buggy is available for anyone with mobility issues.

Roy specially mentioned in his will that no one is to wear black at his funeral, so please come in your brightest colours.  He was a happy person and we want to make his funeral a happy tribute to his memory.

If you wish to bring a floral tribute, we ask that you bring one single flower and nothing else – no oasis, no cellophane, no ribbons, no wires, no cards.  Flowers are put into or on top of the grave and those on top are later removed at an appropriate time in order not to interfere with the natural flora of the site.


Can you please let Roger know if you are coming so that we can cater appropriately, but if you say you are not coming and then change your mind, we will still be very pleased to see you.  Please pass these details to anyone who might be interested.  (Click to email Roger,)

We hope to see you there – 12 noon, Monday 25 November, Clandon Wood. 


RSVP

Roger and Anna