Wednesday Bike Ride - West Surrey Cycling Club

Wednesday 20 July Ride to the Coast

By Mark Waters on 23 July, 2016 / Blog posts

The day after the hottest day of the year so far came the second hottest and we were bound for the coast. Whilst some opted for some assistance, others opted to ride the full distance and here are some shots from the group which started riding prior to meeting at Rowlands Castle. In case you don’t recognise them, we have Tim and Debbie, Anne, William, Patrick, Nick, our great leader, Cap’n H, and yours truly, embarking on his longest ride of the year (so far, he hopes).

South Harting

The day didn’t start as bright as forecast and almost looked like it could rain a one point; but by the time we reached the coffee stop, the sun had come out for good and we enjoyed fine, sunny weather for the remainder of the ride. The route began by climbing up over Hindhead before running down through South Harting and on to Rowlands Castle, where we enjoyed some delicious eats at a historic house there. Remarkably soon after, I thought, we reached Bosham to find the spring tide very high, with the road round the shoreline covered in at least a foot of water.

Peter then led us along a cunning succession of tracks and paths, which involved passing some attractive yacht havens and even making a ferry crossing to Itchenor.

Bosham

Approaching the ferry

The Itchenor Ferry

Lunch was taken at Dell Quay where the pub really is in a perfect position next to the water. Sadly the crab sandwiches had all been consumed before we arrived.

Lunch at Dell Quay

After lunch we took the Centurion’s Way to West Dean (almost), from where we rode to Midhurst for yet more refreshments at the Cafe Verdi; these proved useful as we then climbed up and over Bexley Hill before taking the usual lanes back to Witley and Godalming.

A great ride: thanks, Peter, for your usual expert leading.

Here is the route we took. Further details may be obtained from this link:

https://www.strava.com/activities/647598230

WMW Group 3 Ride ~ 16 March 2016

By Mark Waters on 16 March, 2016 / Blog posts

What, no rain and no frost? It must be spring! It is and we all know what that means – cold easterly winds; and we were not to be disappointed. Nevertheless, it wasn’t too bad, and as the day wore on, it became sunnier, but not much warmer. Certainly more riders had crawled out of their burrows than on the past two or more rides and here they all are at the bus stop on Pirbright Green – well, the thees and fours anyway; the ones and twos were allowed another half hour in bed so we didn’t see them.

The threes quickly overtook the fours – Mr Murdoch was re-named Mr Puncture for the day, although they still somehow beat us to coffee in Odiham – must have taken a shorter route. The route is only glorious for the last section; unfortunately there are things called connurbations between Pirbright and Odiham and they have to be passed through: never mind, close your eyes and think of England (or the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, if you prefer – you see a lot of it!).

The coffee stop in Odiham, the ‘Next Door at the George’ – it looked like the Bel and the Dragon to me – with no fewer than two blue plaques on the outside, is a very pleasant place to take a mid-morning break; and it really was a mid-morning break today, since we had to cycle a lot further than usual to get to it. The place was buzzing; nevertheless, a large young man with a Scottish accent took our order before we even had time to sit down and make ourselves comfortable – now that’s service! I had a delicous cuppacino and toasted tea cake and still got change from a fiver – 30p!

After that we enjoyed a most enjoyable twelve or so miles south to Churt, along comparatively quiet country lanes – they are seldom very quiet in this part of the world. There were a few ups and downs but nothing that stopped the surge of energy being put into a multitude of cranks by the fourteen of us; oh yes, the Spring sap is beginning to rise!

Luncheon was taken at the Crossways in Churt, who told us they weren’t informed that we were coming; they didn’t seem unhappy though and served us quickly and efficiently, mainly with sandwiches. Neil and a.n.other bought baskets of chips and passed them round – how very civilized! And very good they were too! Thanks!

As always happens after lunch, it wasn’t long – well immediately on this occasion – that people start peeling off bound for home; this time Marion left first heading back to Haslemere, and not long after, once we had passed through Tilford, having done a stretch along the dreary Rushmoor straight at a speed of over 22mph, I noticed with surprise, we lost Ian and Brian who were headed for Godalming. I should have been with them but they had cycled to Pirbright and I hadn’t, so I had to see this ride through to the bitter end.

Once over the bridge at Tilford, I noticed that it’s uphill all the way to the top of the Hog’s Back, although we crossed opposite Tongham, so it didn’t involve a big climb at the end, but I, for one, was looking forward to something a bit flatter; and indeed the final stretches to Pirbright are thankfully fairly flat but we did have to fight the wind all the way.

Thanks, John, for the ride, the route, and for not getting upset with all the people who didn’t keep behind you all the time. Riders out today were: Marion Davison, John Child, Neil Eason, Brian East, Phil Gasson, Pete Hathaway, Russell Johnson, Alec MacKenzie, Ian Pickering, John Pletts, Keith Rickards, Keith Stainer, Chris Williamson and Mark Waters.

The route may be viewed below and if you want to see it in more detail, then click on this link: https://www.strava.com/activities/518600034

Wednesday 29 July Group 3 Ride

By Mark Waters on 30 July, 2015 / Blog posts

Mark Waters writes….

Your scribe, together with John Child and new member Alec Mackenzie, rode over from Godalming to meet the group at Mytchett at the very agreeable coffee shop at the Canal Centre. It was by no means the biggest assembly of recent weeks, no doubt partly because the Group 4 riders decided to have coffee at Seale. It was good to see Roger there – obviously on the up and up following his broken femur, Helen, the Tanners, Sue, Chris Jeggo, Rico and Russ, to name but a few.

Phil Gasson was doing the leading today and with minimum fuss or delay, other than bumping into two fully laden Dutch cycle tourists who one simply had to exchange a few words with, we set off on what was advertised as being a long but fairly flat ride into an area not often visited, namely the area south of Reading – sort of Berks / Hants border country. And, after an easy, brief and uneventful ride through Farnborough we were out into the lanes. Thanks to Phil for clearly doing some useful re-connoitering prior to the ride; we even tackled a longish stretch of track at one point although I’m not entirely sure what we avoided by doing this, but it made for a pleasant diversion and added variety.

The lanes were lovely and very scenic and the route even included an uncrossable ford – well, not if you were prepared to go in up to your thighs – but Phil had studied Google Maps and found a bridge some 75 metres up river which we crossed by.

Phil, Keith, Laurie and Alec

And no, Laurie hadn’t just waded through whatever he might want you to believe!

The Coach and Horses at Rotherwick provided a very satisfactory lunch with people choosing either a baguette or baked potato for about £6 a head which was reasonable. Even better, Laurie had a birthday last Sunday and bought us all a drink – cheers, Laurie!

After lunch it rained: well, it’s England and it’s July so what else can one expect! Clearly John and Neil didn’t expect because they hadn’t brought rain jackets – you won’t do that again, will you, chaps! Anyway, it wasn’t too bad really but enough for a wetting. Nevertheless it had cleared up by the time we got back to Farnham via lots more lovely lanes. Our route actually reversed some of the 1st stage of that well known West Surrey Audax ride, the Stonehenge. Once in Farnham, which is getting horribly busy these days, the group started to disassemble in order to go their separate ways home.

As always it was good to have the company of two ladies, both relatively new to the group: Susie and Alison – hope I’ve got the names right. Alison is a refugee from the Charlotteville where, she says, they don’t look after their riders so well on club rides: well, you’ve come to the right place for serious TLC, Alison. Susie joined after meeting Louise and is training hard for a Seattle to Boston adventure in September / October: wow – a 4,000+ mile wow!

Finally, thanks, Phil, for a really enjoyable, nice ‘n gentle 60 mile bash.

Here’s a picture of the route and a link below to Strava for full details:

https://www.strava.com/activities/357151423/overview

Wednesday Wayfarers ~ the Petersfield Ride (8 July 2015)

By Mark Waters on 9 July, 2015 / Blog posts

A minor accident, numerous punctures, a little rain and a lot of wind, an ‘undulating’ route and over twenty out on the Group 4 ride alone: it all made for a day’s riding that made the run-in to Amiens on the Tour today seem almost dull by comparison!

No fewer than 40 West Surrey riders turned up at 10am at Heidi’s in Petersfield ready for a good bike ride and half were up for the hard one: were we mad? Was there something in the air? Had we all had drugs for breakfast?

About a mile out of town and we had a man down – fortunately nothing serious, but a warning to all: the route, the weather and the numbers made it a day to be taken moderately seriously. John Murdoch, as usual, was the man doing the leading and a good job he did, particularly since he had to change the lunch venue no fewer than four times from his original choice: with the delays we had there was no way we would make it to Amberley for lunch. In actual fact we made it to Sutton and the White Horse, where we all enjoyed sandwiches and some much needed grog, alcoholic and otherwise; it had been a long and lumpy morning with certain people needing to spend much time at lonely junctions acting as ‘human signposts’. The system worked perfectly. What a clever chap our President is to have invented this fool-proof method of avoiding losing people!

After lunch about half the group headed north and homewards unassisted by the train, whilst the others returned to Petersfield. The journey home was uneventful thankfully, but into a strong headwind. I don’t think anyone was sorry when we finally reached our destination.

Here’s the route:

For a closer look try clicking on one or other of the following links:

https://www.strava.com/activities/341852579

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/827397492

The route was 55 miles long and we ‘enjoyed’ an elevation gain of 1179 metres.

Here then are some more images from the day. Thanks, John, for a great ride – again!

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