Red Lion at Turners Hill

It was pretty cold, with grey skies, and some light rain forecast but six people on five machines still assembled at Three Bridges station. Most of us use the Internet these days so it is good to check the runs list for the start time, as we occasionally have discrepancies between the list in the Pedaller and the list on our website - the website is the one that is most up to date. On Sunday we left just after 10.00 to head south in a variation on my usual easy route to Turners Hill. This ride was billed as 40 miles medium and so, using a variant of Naismiths rule (fans of Mornington Crescent will get this one) we made the ride 25 miles with a couple of big hills in (hard)!
We headed up Pease Pottage to the roundabout, through Handcross and downhill all of the way to Staplefield - of course if you ask any of the riders about the ride they will remember the 'ups', but not this long down.... After Staplefield we headed through to the B2115 where we turned left for Cuckfield. Now, on my map the routeshowed as a continuous brown road until the junction with the B2036 at Cuckfield, so when we reached a T junction we turned left, as planned, taking us downhill (again) to Staplefield (again)! Realising this deviation from plan, Bob (for he knows all roads in West Sussex), quickly suggested a right turn uphill (slightly up anyway, for a long way) to the Water Tower, where we turned hard right to Balcombe and back on to our designated route. So, sometimes straight brown roads have little hidden 'T's' in them.... The only bit that we missed was a little lane that I had planned the whole route around (:-< Doooh! Never mind we pushed on through Balcombe to the reservoir and up a short but quite steep hill. At the top
we noticed a large, slightly dilapidated hay-stack, but no castle behind it (Check the real thing in Salfords), and turned left up towards the ridge where Turners Hill sits. We arrived at the Red Lion to meet the landlord who I went to school with 40 years ago, and we had not met in all that time either! By the way, neither of us look a day older..... The pub is advertised as a 'real pub' and it certainly is; it even has mild. So we enjoyed a pleasant lunch before the long freewheel back in to Crawley as nobody fancied the 15 miles that I had planned for the afternoon, especially given the cold. Everyone seemed to enjoy the ride - we missed you if you weren't there.

And there is a new Mick Horley rule - if the ride leaders are on a tandem, then two lots of double points!!!

Spare a thought for Anton - he rode only 132 miles in an Audax on Saturday, but texted to say that he might join us for lunch. At 13.30 on Sunday he texted to say where were we, as he was sitting in the Crown at Turners Hill (where we usually go) - a text that I only picked up when I got home....

So moral of the day - check the runs list on the Web - it gives you the start, the time of the start and the lunch stop!

Runs list: http://handc-ctc.tripod.com/id22.html

(Note: most run leaders have emails and/or mobile numbers for likely attendees; if you do want notifying of any last minute changes to rides, in the very rare event that there are any, it is a good idea to keep the leaders updated with your details).