Bill Kent, Adam Domaingue, Tracy Caudle, Trevor Kite, Paul White with Bill Martin leading met at Nonsuch Mansion for the last Club off road ride of the year. The weather was overcast, but reasonably mild with little or no wind.
Our ride climbed steadily up to Banstead Down, crossed the A217 and passed the south wall of the prison before dropping to Oaks Park for a quick coffee at the cafe. On the descent to the park Tracy clipped a tree root and showed us what a professional stunt person can do with a fall. The handlebars were re-aligned to match the normal direction of the front wheel in a couple of minutes and soon after we were at the cafe.
At the cafe Andy Pearce joined us for coffee and cake. This was a quick stop as our main stop at Horton was for lunch and a special guest star’s appearance. We left the cafe and Trevor Kite took over the lead on his ‘flat ride route’ towards Horton. This entailed climbing Gallows Hill, Woodmansterne, dropping down into Chipstead Valley and climbing back out to Kingswood. With Bill now back leading we again crossed the A217 for a second time and made our way through the back streets of Tadworth, onto Walton Downs (the back, south side of Epsom Downs Race Course), before climbing half way out of Langley Vale and briefly clipping the outskirts of Ashtead.
The final muddy, minor climb came on Epsom Common on the last mile to Horton and the Moat House Cafe in the garden centre. With everyone enjoying the miles we’d done we finally arrived at our lunch venue where Dave Rapson from the wild and windy Cotswolds was waiting, along with Mick Curtis attending for lunch.
Much food and much catching-up-banter later, we all left the venue for home, and for me the bonus getting straight into the warm car instead of riding after lunch.
Thanks to Bill Kent for the map, I forgot to switch Stroppy Strava on again!