We took very familiar roads via Plough lane to Ockham and Ripley to pick up the A3 cycle path towards Burpham, and then the main road straight into Guildford town centre. Through the town centre and out on the road towards Godalming, we turned off up Sandy Lane, and then followed this via Stakescorner Road and Furzen Lane into Farncombe, and then up Farncombe Hill and past Charterhouse School. There then followed a very long, pretty straight run down through Hurtmore and Shackleford into Elstead, where we arrived about 10 minutes early for our lunch stop at The Woolpack in Elstead.
When Geoff first sent me his proposed ride, I followed it on a map and thought that it followed a lot of roads that I was not familiar with, but on my recon ride I realised that I had ridden these roads several times before, but always in the opposite direction, usually as an after-lunch ride back towards home. Over lunch, several people mentioned the same thing to me and all seemed very pleased to do something they had not done before.
The sandwiches took a bit longer to arrive than we would have liked, but otherwise we were given a very warm welcome, and the service we received was outstanding, all finally topped off with a 20% discount for booking in advance!!. A worthy addition to the list of lunch stops and one that I'm sure we will use again.
After lunch, we headed up towards Puttenham via Fulbrook Lane and Suffield Lane, and then on via Wanborough Hill (down, thankfully) onto Normandy. We then took the busy but very fast roads back via Worplesdon, Sutton Green, Mayford, Old Woking and Send to turn up Tannery Lane and Papercourt Lane into Ripley. We were back there by 3.30, so pushed on for tea in the late afternoon sun at the Medicine Garden back in Cobham.
21 very enjoyable miles to lunch and another 23 back to tea.
Many thanks to all who came along, those who marked corners along the way, and to Hans for back-marking and making sure we didn't lose anyone !!
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