A Group 16 August: Guildford - Grayswood (Haslemere)

Well, despite derailments and other disruption at Waterloo, a decent crowd showed up at Guildford for coffee outdoors - the first time that's been possible in about a month.  We left fashionably late, allowing just enough time for John Bassett to join the group of 15.   The warm-up hill out of Guildford was The Mount, leading us to a stretch of off-road, which was pretty dry.  Things went downhill from there, past Watts Gallery to Puttenham where we turned south west towards Elstead and Tilford, where the Bs were due to lunch at the Barley Mow.   Someone, who shall be nameless, suggested that we drop in and eat the B group's pre-ordered lunches, but we told him that even riding from London to Edinburgh wouldn't excuse him for such a sin.   

We were making good time, or so I thought (wrongly, as it turned out), so we did a little additional loop round Frensham and Spreakley, quite pretty, before heading past Frensham Pond and up hill towards Churt.  In fact, a little extra up hill as I took a wrong turning.  On the plus side, a little extra down hill as we corrected my mistake.    A nice ride along (and up) Whitmore Vale took us to Grayshott, where some people were thinking hopefully of lunch, being as it was well past 1pm, and Grayshott sounds a bit like Grayswood - but no, still another six miles to go, I cheerfully informed them, and they, less cheerfully, weren't sure if I was joking.  Skirting Hindhead we descended a rather exciting "access only" lane to arrive at Haslemere, where David J had to leave us, and it was a short hop to The Wheatsheaf at Grayswood, where they were almost as pleased to see us as we them.

Food was served promptly and consumed eagerly, (sitting outside!!) and we were on our way.   27 miles and two hours to lunch, but only ten miles to the Boathouse at Farncombe, passing through more quiet lanes and a bit of Godalming.  The proprietor at Farncombe was rather grumpy, as he thought we'd told him we were arriving at 3pm.  It didn't help things when I said we hadn't booked at all, but the combined charm of the A group won him over and he forgave us, serving us big pots of tea and cake, outside watching the boats come and go.   I reckon about half of the group had ridden to Guildford and were riding home - it would have been an 80+ mile ride for them.

Nice to ride on less-familiar routes, mostly quiet roads with quite a few lanes through woods or along scenic valleys.  Thank you to Geoff for the photos, to Mike B for back marking, and also to those who marked corners - it makes a big difference to everyone's enjoyment.  The route was devised by my brother Peter, who knows the area better than me, so you can blame him for the bits you didn't like.