A ride 24 April - Littleworth Common

Sunshine! It really felt that spring had arrived with clear skies and warm temperatures. A good crowd of people were sitting out on the patio at Shepperton, enjoying the unseasonal weather. (Or was it the rest of spring that was unseasonal?). I had planned a slightly longer than usual trip to Burnham Beeches so we set off fairly promptly, heading through Chertsey and along the Surrey Cycleway with a very short piece of off-road especially for Jeff, to Egham, where we had a choice of going over or round Tite Hill to Windsor.

Being the A group we went over, skirting the Great Park and zooming down Crimp Hill, giving a scare to two workmen who were mending potholes. Through Windsor town centre where the castle was gleaming in the sunlight(!), over the river and through Eton Wick, against a fresh breeze, to Dorney and Burnham. Pressing Northwards we continued up the steady incline of Taplow Common Road, past Cliveden to our destination of the Jolly Woodman at Littleworth Common.

Still sunny! and warm from our exertions, we enjoyed a good spread of food in the pub garden. It was tempting to linger but we had a fair distance to travel on our return, so we set off through tiny roads and tracks through Burnham Beeches, down to Farnham Royal and neatly through Slough on a dead-straight cycle track which must have been an old railway line. Frank was on his tricycle and when I say it was dead straight, it was punctuated by chicane-like features where a left-right wiggle was required. I worried that the trike might have been too wide, but Frank made it look easy.

The last part of Slough was past the giant Horlicks factory near the railway, a sign of Britain's past, and the smaller Burger King head office near the A4, hopefully not a portent of our future. Crossing the A4 in three groups due to the very short 'green' time of the lights, we eventually made it to the Jubilee river after being cheered on by hordes of school children who no doubt thought that Bradley Wiggins et al were among our number. From there it was urban riding through Datchet, Wraysbury, Staines, Laleham and Shepperton en route to the Walled Garden at Sun!bury for tea and generous portions of cake. 43 miles from elevenses so some would have clocked 70 miles for the day.