SLeigh Ride

Cripes! It’s Thursday and I haven’t written the blog for last Sunday’s ride yet …. I’ve been busy …. too many things to do ….. not had the opportunity . Well, all of those are true but the real reason is that I’ve completely lost my muse!

Normally I think of something – an event, a complaint, an enjoyable moment, a question – and pin the whole blog on that, but this week I’ve come up with nothing.
True, I’ve got out of the habit recently what with the turnout of one (me), the cancelled ride, being away for the weekend and those ventures I made into poetry but I thought all that would leave me feeling verbally refreshed and ready to dash off some scintillating prose on the joys of our club rides. No such luck. Take this week for instance, I really enjoyed the ride (it was the longest I’ve done for about a month), we had a good turnout – Mick, Barbara, Pete, Marian, John V, Richard and me as leader – the weather was sunny and dry, the route was varied and quite beautiful in places, the pub was warm and friendly with good food and excellent beer, Anton met us at the pub and there was any easy ride back home. In fact, in the big scheme of things it ticked almost all the boxes for an inspiring ride yet I’m still devoid of the literary spark. I’m pondering all this as I’m sat at work waiting for a couple of things to happen before I can continue with my current project.

I’ve just checked my e-mail – no progress there, so back to the blog.
I’m going to attempt another bit of verse, so here goes:

Another Sunday out on the Bike
With friends from Horsham and Crawley
We rode north and I added a loop
To arrive at the Plough in Leigh.

That only took me a couple of minutes (…and it shows!! ) and raises the question of how to pronounce the name of the village. Is it Leigh as in “lee” or is it Leigh as in “lie”? As you can tell from my poem, I plump for the “lee” sound, but I don’t know whether that’s correct or not. Anyone out there know for sure?

Anyway, let’s describe the route. We left Three Bridges Station and headed through the back streets of Three Bridges and then Northgate before using the Crawley Avenue underpass into the Industrial Estate. From there it was past the Beehive and onto the cyclepath through Gatwick Airport. Emerging into Horley I took us on a slightly zig-zaggy route past the Hot Air Balloon pub and then out on Meath Green Lane. This lane becomes Lonesome Lane and was notable for the really good road surface – lovely and smooth. There weren’t too many cars out either. As the lane arrived in Reigate the surface deteriorated badly and I began to wish I'd used the bridleway that John V had suggested a quarter mile earlier. Now heading west we were soon back out in the countryside and only a couple of miles from the pub. As it was only a few minutes past eleven I added a northern loop taking us over a slight hill and through some nice parkland complete with a herd of deer. The sign nearby said “Police Training Area” – uncharitably I wondered what kind of training they received there: How to arrest people protecting their own house/family/property? How to let obvious ne’er-do-wells get away with murder? How to use the company credit card for personal gain? But hey, that’s just grumpy old me talking – I’d rather see a British Bobby than any other copper from around the world, it’s just that the odd bad apple spoils things from time to time.
Anyway, off the soapbox and back on the bike. Arriving at Betchworth we turned south towards a somewhat watery sun (nice blue sky though) for a couple of miles on a slightly busy road before heading east for the final mile to pull in at the The Plough in Leigh just as the pub opened its doors. John V, Barbara and Richard weren’t stopping for lunch so we bade them farewell and then joined the regulars inside to order our pints of Sussex and various panini sandwiches or soup.

With impeccable timing Anton arrived about 30 seconds after we’d got the second round of drinks in – was he waiting outside? Only kidding. We were pleased to see him and his wife. They’d been out looking at cars and, I fancy, were a bit fed up with it, so had decided to join us for lunch. Lunchtime conversation topics were all over the place but one area revisited from last week was the question Mick posed about how much would need adding to a 40,000 km rope circling the earth in order to raise it one metre higher all round. With the benefit of a chat I had with my dad on Sunday evening I can tell you that the answer is 2pi metres. In fact, whatever units you are working in, the answer is 2pi x those units, so to raise it one foot all round, you’d need to add 2pi feet to the 40,000 kms, to raise it one km you’d add 2pi kms etc.etc.etc.

Hey, this wasn’t so hard – I’m halfway down a second page in Word!

Once we finished it was back out into the cold and the most direct route home which took us first to Parkgate, then along Partridge Lane before Mick carried on to Rusper and on home to Horsham whilst Pete, Marian and myself took Orltons Lane, Langhurst Lane and then the Rusper Road back into Crawley.

Total mileage was a little under the 35 advertised but, having been partying until 02:00 hrs on Saturday night, I was glad to get back to a warm settee in front of my glowing television screen for a late afternoon snooze.

Next weeks ride is a medium 40 miles from Horsham Park Pavilion at 09:30hrs. Led by Anton it will take a southerly loop for lunch at the Limeburners Arms just west of Billingshurst. I hope to see you there.