The Blue Ship

Here's a video of my favourite part of today's ride:

http://youtu.be/F_Jxpomgg28

Next weeks ride starts from Horsham Park Pavilion at 10:00 and Anton will lead us on a 35 mile circular trip stopping at Doves Barn Garden Centre for lunch where we will rendezvous with the Bognor/Chichester group (probably).

Reigate Garden Centre

Beautiful sunny day today, just perfect for a bike ride. I left home early and had an enjoyable ride along the Forest Road into Horsham. In fact, I was so early I had time to sit down with a coffee in the Pavilion Cafe (along with a surprised Michael - he hadn't expected me to be so early).

Having finished my coffee I went outside to be met by a crowd of riders - Barbara, Val, Michael, Mick, Norman, Pete E and new rider John, all eager to get going. Just then my phone rang - it was John C to say he was running late and would try and intercept us somewhere along the route.  

We set off and left Horsham via Wimblehurst Road, North Heath Lane, Pondtail Road and Pondtail Drive. We walked our bikes over the bypass having waited for quite a bit of traffic to go past and then headed up Langhurstwood road. The pong wasn't too bad and we were soon away from it. We carried on up to Capel where we were briefly accompanied by a small group of roadies. Mid rook Green Road took us on up to Trig Street from where we headed east to Newdigate. At this point, Barbara and John turned south to head back to Horsham whilst the rest of us carried on to Parkgate and Leigh. Although Flanchford Road was blocked with "Road Closed" signs, we went past them, reassured by the fact that several cyclists were coming from that direction. Sure enough we got through - the bridge parapet was being repaired and road narrowing bollards had been installed but bikes could easily get through. Only a mile later we arrived at Reigate Garden centre and, as I locked my bike up, John C arrived.

Although most of us were served our lunch quite promptly, Val didn't get hers even after two reminders, so remained I refreshed as we set off on the return ride. The return route retraced our steps as far as Parkgate where the Michael headed west and the rest of us went south, through Charlwood and then through Ifield Wood. On reaching the Rusper Road, Pete, Val and Norman turned right to go back to Horsham leaving just john and I to go through Ifield, West Green and the town centre to get home.

Easy Ride - suitable for Beginners

The second Sunday of the month means that our ride is an easy one suitable for anyone and everyone.

The funny thing is that we seem to have more and more of our members turn up on these rides, this week was no exception. In total there were eleven of us!! In addition we had two guests as well.

Pete S (with Marian) had the pleasure of leading Barbara, Sandra, Val, John V, Michael, Ken, Norman, Pete E and myself as well as guests Malcolm and Rob. I had hoped that we would be going for a jaunt along The Worth Way, but the consensus had leant toward winging our way to Redhill Aerodrome instead. As Pete E was still on the train, I let everyone else start riding whilst I waited for him to arrive. We were only about15 minutes behind everyone else, but cracked along at a fair pace. I thought we would catch up with the "peloton" somewhere in the Industrial Estate but, even though we streaked along the Gatwick straight in excess of 20mph, we didn't manage to make the join until the traffic lights in the middle of Horley!

As we crowded along the shared use foot/cycle path leading north through Horley, we had a minor incident where one of riders was so engrossed in looking out for motor traffic as we crossed a road that she didn't notice a bollard and rode into it! Fortunately we weren't going fast and although she came off, she wasn't hurt. We carried on and Pete made sure we avoided the bumpy bridleway and took the smooth tarmac route along Orchard Drive. The end of this road has an unusual feature insofar as, where it joins up with Cross Oak Lane, what should be a T-Junction is instead a limited access junction. For some (stupid in my opinion) reason, the road layout and signage prohibits anyone from turning right onto Cross Oak Lane. I'm guessing some combination of Surrey/Horley/Salfords road planners and local Nimby residents got their knickers in a twist about the possibility of people driving through the local lanes rather than the choked up A217. What this means for cyclists is that, rather than break the law and ignore the no-right turn signs, we have to ride past the junction then turn right onto a strip of the old road surface that takes us east along the lane in the direction we want (the A217 is no place for cyclists if they can avoid it).

From here, we just had to ride up Picketts Lane, then Masons Bridge Road before turning right onto Kings Mill lane which took us to Redhill Aerodrome and the Chef on the Road cafe for a brunch stop.

It was quite crowded but we managed to get a table outside, where we could sit, eat, drink, chat and watch the various light aircraft and helicopters that were taking off and landing.

Our return journey exactly retraced our outbound route and I would like to say that it was pretty uneventful.

Our next ride starts from Horsham Pavilion in the Park at 10:00 hrs on Sunday 16th March. Bob will lead us on a fairly easy 20 mile route to the cafe at Reigate Garden Centre and return on a shorter but just as easy route. Come along - the weather forecast is really good, I reckon it's going to be a great day out on your bike.

Pootle to Partridge Green

Happy Birthday to us! Our club was formed at this time of year some thirty odd years ago, so it was good to see a couple of founder members out riding with us today. In fact, I was pleased to see eight riders joining me for today's ride: Mick, Val, Norman, Malcolm, Pete E, John V, Pete and Marian S.

I'd made a tactical error in setting up the runs list in that I had two consecutive Horsham starts that headed in the same direction. Anton had given us a good ride to Maplehurst a fortnight ago and there was a risk today's ride would use a lot of the same roads, so I deliberately worked out a zig-zaggy route to avoid that. 

We left Horsham by crossing the golf course, going under the A24 and onto Robin Hood Lane. Broadbridge Heath was very quiet and we were soon negotiating the new road layout at Newbridge. From here we took the next left to Christs Hospital and on to Two Mile Ash. Next we went up Bonfire Hill to Southwater.

Here I outsourced the ride leader role to Norman and he skilfully guided us through the avenues and alleyways of deepest, darkest Southwater. We crossed over the A24 near the RSPCA HQ then headed south from Newfoundout to use Jackrells Lane/Polecat Lane on to Copsale. I'd forgotten about the little hill on this Lane but huffed and puffed my way up it all the way to Maplehurst. We regrouped for the final two hills before lunch but, as we hit the second, Pete and Marian's tandem was making some horrible crunching noises from the area of the bottom bracket. Shortly after we crossed the A272 their bottom bracket gave up the ghost and the chain kept coming off, meaning they had to walk the last mile or so to the pub.

We had a lovely lunch at The Partridge in Partridge Green, all of us opting for one of their range of baps. The pub is run by the local Dark Star brewery I believe, and between us we sampled there excellent brews - I had a delicious pint of brown ale from the local. Pete and Marian arranged for their son to come and pick them and the broken tandem up, whilst the rest of us remounted and headed back home hoping to beat the rain which was forecast for 3p.m.

I'd considered using the Downs Link to avoid some hills but looking at the map I reckoned it would be shorter by staying on the roads. So we retraced our morning route back to Copsale, with Jon V leaving us to head back to Crawley via Newells Lane whilst the rest us headed up to Kerves Lane. This took us on up to Horsham where we split into two groups, one heading back to the start and Norman, Mick and myself heading for the Roffey area.

From Roffey I used the Forest Road, but just short of Pease Pottage the rain finally started. As it was fairly fine rain I decided to keep going and not bother stopping to put on my waterproofs. The rain got heavier as I raced down Pease Pottage Hill so I decided to go through Tilgate Park in order to get some shelter from the trees. I took my usual diagonal route across the grassy slope but it was very slippy - a combination of my slick tyres and the extremely wet ground conditions.  Here's a video of the trip down Pease Pottage Hill and through Tilgate park (it's speeded up a bit):



If I'd had my knobbly tyres on I'd have been quicker through the park but would have been absolutely covered in mud from head to toe, so maybe carefully skating along on slicks was a good idea? It certainly helps hone your concentration!!  As you can see, the track alongside the golf driving range was badly potholed with an expanding selection of muddy puddles of indeterminate depth but I was soon home and amazingly not too covered in crud either. I chucked a couple of buckets of water over my trusty bike and then sprayed it with light oil before putting it away having checked to see how many miles I'd ridden - 46.

Next weeks ride is an Easy ride aimed at beginners and will start from Three Bridges Station at 10:00 hrs, come along, enjoy riding your bike in good company.