A Bill Martin-led ride today with Bill Kent, Trevor Kite, Tracy Caudle, Dave Elliott, Andy Pearce and myself following. A rather overcast day with the temperature around 7°C as we slipped and slid our way climbing towards Banstead via Nork. The mud was gooey, and at times an enthusiastic push on the pedal would just produce a futile slip of the rear wheel – great fun!
From Banstead we headed out to Kingswood via more entertaining porridge trails before crossing the A217 and arriving at the elevenses stop.
The stop was busy because the food was so tasty. Many goodies were consumed and the tea was poured from a delightful pot.
At the stop we met with Simon Mitchell and a very nice young lady serving us offered to take a crew shot.
The ride back took us on a narrow descent to Epsom Downs and with a final push we were over the undulations and looking at the race course grandstand in the distance. The final descent was ‘Rifle Butts,’ a quirky little trail named after the fact the fields in that area were used for weapons practice during WW1. A few twists and turns through the back streets of Epsom and we were back over Priest Hill and into Nonsuch Park.
18 miles for me, but in that mud it felt like 30!