Barbara had ridden the route with Ros and so was going to lead in her place, but unfortunately she'd hurt her ankle yesterday.
Bob had contacted Ros to find out the route details, but unfortunately he didn't have any injuries and turned up at the start!!!!!
Bob was joined by Johnny at Three Bridges Station and together they headed off on The Worth Way for an uneventful ride over to East Grinstead. In spite of the early rain, which had caused Bob to put his knobblies on his bike and his waterproofs on himself, the sky was clear and blue and although the breeze was quite fresh it wasn't cold. The surface of The Worth Way was very good with very little splatter coming up from the tyres and it only took us 35 minutes to get from Crawley to East Grinstead.
We stopped at East Grinstead Station to see if anyone else would be joining us and after a couple of minutes Alison rolled up. As this ride had been rated as "Easy" she had decided to give it a try. Looking at the map, Bob felt that due to the hilly terrain the ride probably warranted more of a "Medium" rating and decided to shorten the route slightly to keep it pleasurable. Leaving the station and heading downhill, a map-reading error saw us turn right at a roundabout instead of going straight on and we were into the first climb of the day. A left turn took us past the Hockey and Rugby clubs and down to Saints Hill Green. From here we back en-route and headed west towards the tail end of Weirwood Reservoir. As we were going down the hill I took this picture of the reservoir. What the picture doesn't show is just how low the water level is compared with how I remember it from 30 years ago - I reckon it's a good 20 feet lower, possibly more!
Next we took Legsheath Lane for the long climb up into Ashdown Forest. As we rode along this lane we were overtaken by several sets of cyclists before we got to the crossroads. We all headed straight over but then we turned right into Twyford Lane (the other cyclists carried straight on). This lane was the usual pleasure to ride with a glorious mile or so of freewheeling before it steepened down further to twist and turn through some woodland before splashing through a ford.
Unfortunately my camera battery faded at this point, so no more pictures I'm afraid.
Now I started to deviate from Ros's route and took a sharp right to go down and cross another ford before going up a short, sharp climb that saw Granny have her first outing of the day. We carried on west then southwest to Cinder Hill and a little further on took the right turn and down a slight incline to turn into Horsted Keynes Station on The Bluebell Railway.
Locking our bikes up outside (probably quite unnecessarily) we purchased platform tickets and entered the station. On the middle platform is the station bar and buffet and here we got our refreshments - hot Cornish Pasties and tea/coffee. Johnny found a nice bench in the sunshine and we sat there consuming our consumables, watching various trains pass through the station and chatting about this and that.
Eventually it was time to get going again and as we approached the first junction I asked my fellow riders which route they wanted to take - turn left for a short, steep uphill, a sharp downhill and equally sharp uphill before a longish but pretty gentle climb or turn right for a long, draggy climb. They opted for the long, draggy climb so we turned right and climbed up and through Highbrook and then on and on up to Sharpthorne. Here it was good to see that the pub looks like it will soon reopen (it was once called The Vinols Cross Inn, but I think had been renamed The Fabulous Fox or something like that).
The rest of the ride would be on the fairly busy road through West Hoathly and on to Turners Hill. On the way several cyclists went past us again and I took the opportunity to chat with one of them and found out that they were taking part in a Sportif ride organised by Evans Bikes. It had been raining when they started and the route had involved a lot of hills but they were now only about 5 miles or so from the finish.
We said goodbye to Alison at Turners Hill as she lives there, and Johnny and I headed back down to Crawley past Tulleys Farm (the road has reopened after its closure last week). When we reached the Worth Way we turned onto it and retraced our tyretracks all the way back to Three Bridges Station. From here Johhny headed back to his hotel in the town centre and I headed home to Furnace Green where I noticed a reading of 30 miles on my speedo.
It seems hard to believe, but next weekend it will be December! Our ride for the Sunday 4th December will be a very easy, beginners ride starting at Three Bridges Station at 10:00 hrs. Depending on who turns up, it will probably head for Redhill Aerodrome where refreshments are available at the cafe, and then get back to Crawley before 13:00hrs.
The week after (on Sunday 11th December) will be the club Christmas Dinner. Riders can rendezvous at Rusper at 11:15 for a short ride down through Faygate, across the A264 and up Tower Hill to arrive at The Dragon in Colgate with time for a festive drink before Dinner at 12:30. Why not bring along husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends for what we hope will be a pleasant and enjoyable festive meal. The cost will be £15.95 a head and you must let Barbara know by December 1st. See the website for more details: http://www.horshamandcrawleyctc.org.uk/
Barbara can be emailed at: Barbara@HorshamandCrawleyCTC.org.uk
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