A Return to the Pleasure Pit - Group Riding at Last!

From Monday groups of six were allowed to meet in the open and ride together for the first time in more weeks than we care to count, so on Wednesday the Committee (minus Jeff, still confined to barracks) took up a ride hastily prepared and recced by Tim and me and designed for use by B group out of Leatherhead, in order to test on the road the distancing and outdoor meeting and lunching arrangements which form the basis of the plan for Wayfarers' rides in the New Normal.

The first ride of the month is usually out of Cobham, so how to adapt in two days a ride designed to start at Leatherhead?  Simple, send the leader out the day before to recce an extra bit and ride from Cobham to Leatherhead before doing the prepared ride.

Thus we met on Wednesday morning outside Fego's coffee place on Anyard Road, armed each with an electronic version of the route, hand cleansing material and a packed lunch, and sporting a variety of Lockdown disguises including a new beard and a huge white frizzy Einstein barnet.  We had a socially distanced coffee, relieved ourselves, one at a time, in the loos behind the British Legion (which we knew, thanks to Jennie's sterling survey of every toilet facility in the Northern Hemisphere, would be open) and set out down the Stoke Road.

Socially distanced six at Cobham elevenses.

The Met Office had promised thundery rain but all we got was a grey day at temperatures well below the recent balmy ones, and spots of drizzle at inconvenient moments.  We rode through Leatherhead and a sparsely visited Little Switzerland and had a socially distanced lunch on Banstead Heath with only a hint of rain.  

Picnic lunch, Walton on the Hill. (Alas the Blue Ball remained closed!).

This was followed by an adventurous afternoon negotiating tree roots in the paths south of Ashtead, a descent into south Epsom, a climb up Chalk Lane and tea at Tattenham Corner standing socially distanced as the drizzle came with increased persistence.

Six off-road, woodland tracks, Addlestead Wood.

Standing-up, socially distanced tea for six - Epsom Downs.

On the way we had tested how group discipline works when each rider is at least ten metres away from the others, how we could hold the discipline up some fairly steep ascents with members wanting to travel at different speeds and all this in a range of weather.  The New Normal had, in the end, worked rather well once we had remembered to get unused to riding solo and to signal road surface hazards to those following behind.  Strict corner marking was necessary because the distances between us were greater, but up the steep and narrow lanes we were leaving enough space for drivers to pull in safely between us.  We also decided that it was more important in the New Normal rather than the old than the back marker had to stay at the back, giving the corner marker confidence that the whole group had been accounted for.  To some extent the rider can manage his own risk on the road because he or she decides how close is ten metres and can hang back if behind a cougher, sneezer or spitter.  In the morning there was a little "catching up" on the hills but we discussed this at our lunch stop and concluded that conversation on the road is best ruled out in the New Normal.  As a result we held formation better in the afternoon.  The two snags were the need to use natural toilet facilities (the bushes on Banstead Heath are thin) and the plain fact that lunching could have been pretty miserable in the pouring rain.

Next Wednesday the leaders will be invited to try riding the New Normal, and the week afterwards we will further open up the rides.  Despite the downturn in the weather it was a delight to be riding in a group again, a real mood-lifter, and a joy all Wayfarers will soon be able to share.

My door to door stats were 72.62 Kms and 684 metres of climbing at 16.7 Km/h.  Ged's Strava recorded, of course, from a different door; 84.92 and 654 metres; 18.1 Km/h.  You get the picture, including how much faster Ged rides when he does not have to follow me!

Paul James