Leith Hill (the highest point in the southeast)

Ten lovely people turned up for today's ride and enjoyed a leisurely ride through Crawley, Ifield, Rusper and Ockley before gritting their teeth and climbing up to Leith Hill. The weather was sunny and clear but with a chilly northeasterly wind, so the hot drinks and cake on sale at the Tower were most welcome. 

Corinne and Norman enjoyed some of the trails through the woods on their mountain bikes as we headed east along the ridge before regrouping at Coldharbour. Then we all enjoyed the downhill blast down Anstie Lane - my parting instruction before launching myself down the hill was "Don't over cook the corners!".  Judging by the loud shout and throb of rubber on Tarmac, it would seem that Norman tackled one of the corners with the gas regulator turned up a bit high!!

Regrouping at the bottom of the hill, I was very pleased to see the monster smiles on everyone's faces - they'd all enjoyed that bit (it made up for the hard work of the climb earlier).

The Beare Green roundabout wasn't too busy and was easily negotiated, allowing us to arrive at the Six Bells in Newdigate shortly after.

We lunched indoors and, to be honest, it was quite a noisy affair with us all trying to do various finger exercises, talking about tattoos and trying to come up with a slogan for the club - I believe someone suggested Lion or Littlehampton!

Once we were back on the road, talk was mainly about having another teastop and in spite of a couple of stops to reflate a slow puncture, we were soon back in Crawley and going our separate ways.

Everyone enjoyed the ride and let's hope the same will be true of next weeks ride.  It will start from Horsham Pavilions in the Park at 10:00 hrs and Pete E will lead us all on a fairly easy loop south of Horsham to lunch at The White Horse in Maplehurst.