Nuts; B Group out of Redhill, 23 September

 

Tally ho!  Red Team peel out of the cloud to thrash the Hun

Life continues to be a learning experience; in this case, ride leading.  Last time around the route was handed me on a plate and it was the first week after lockdown so there were no pubs open (or toilets, for that matter!).  This was the first time I had to do it all; find a pub and plan a route on paper maps and then ride around the Surrey lanes for a couple of weeks, ascertaining whether double lines on an Ordnance Survey map were cyclable or fit only for cattle; in this case, something between the two.

 

You end up broadly familiar with the bulk of your route, save the one or two tricky bits on which you have not yet quite decided, so that on the final recce, when you show your sub-leaders what you have lumbered them with, you can at last relax a bit on the bike and revel in the realisation that this is some beautiful English countryside through which you are riding, and there are some gorgeous views.

 

Then, on the eve of the big event, you have to acknowledge that the weathermen might after all be right and all those miles you practised in benign sunshine might have to be shared with your friends in the cold drizzle!

 

Redhill has never been the most popular ride for the B Group but we ran two groups of five, John Austin kindly taking the first (Blue Team); Sue, Ken, Colin and Dudley.  Mine was the Red Team (Tim, Tony, David and Dave), and the weather when we congregated at Pistachios in the Memorial Park at Redhill, twenty minutes apart with very little overlap and only a couple of minor fraternisations, was cool and grey but nowhere near as bad as had been predicted.

 

What a contrast Redhill provides for the cyclist.  Every runner and dog walker we met as we left town through the country park could not have been friendlier, standing aside, greeting us.  Perhaps they could put together a seminar on manners for the drivers on Coopers Hill Road, whom I strongly suspect, given the speed they were doing, were not locals!

 

It was there that the spits of rain increased to the point that we stopped to don rainwear but no matter, it was only a brief, light shower and we were dried out by the wind by the time we got to lunch.  The off road was not universally popular but none of us had fallen off by the time we turned into the damp garden of the Barley Mow at Tandridge only to discover an issue that had not featured in my risk analysis; the pub had not opened in time for the first group.

 

It was one of those lunches where you had to balance the risks of getting Covid inside the pub against the risks of getting a chill outside.  Blue Group opted for the garden; Red Group split, two in the second garden and three remainers.  We allowed Blue Team fifteen minutes after their departure, which was just enough time for the heavens to open but it did not rain for long and we made our way over the North Downs and on to Caterham Hill to RAF Kenley, the best preserved of the remaining Battle of Britain airfields, appropriately a few days after the anniversary of the conclusion of that battle eighty years ago.

 

David, Tony & Paul in awe of The Few

There was some excitement at the bottom of Old Lodge Lane, where the lorry in front of us had millimetres to spare under the railway bridge.  He made it!  

The last drag up past the posh houses of Woodcote was slightly more telling on the thighs than it would have been had we not climbed a fair amount already, but it was important to show the social deprivation in evidence all the way up the hill.  Why do they call it Millionaires’ Row?

 

Chairman and editor, taken by the club secretary

Pistachios at Banstead was not only open but offering a fine slice of chocolate cake as the rain came again; nicely timed!  Thank you, John, for leading Blue Team, who had an equal share of rain, before and after lunch but found Salmons Lane a doddle!  And thank you all for your companionship on an enjoyable day.  I am glad my first “proper” ride is done and dusted!

Pistachios to Pistachios, thirty miles with a thousand feet of climbing