Easy Riders report - 4th August

It was a lovely day for the Easy Riders to take a  longer excursion than usual, especially as our coffee meetup was at Cobham this week. At North Cheam, we welcomed Richard, who hasn't been out for a while for health reasons; and Cam and Sue, joining a Midweek Wayfarers ride for the first time, having been to several of the Saturday Beginners rides this season.

Helen led out just after 9.30 and we took the route through Claygate and Blackhills, which we haven't done for a while. We arrived at the Hollyhedge courtyard round the corner from Cobham RBL bang on 11 o'clock and took our choices of coffee from the little café or the bakery. It was good briefly to see some of the A group before they departed. Ray, Caroline, Peter and John were there already; Don arrived a little late as he'd gone to the railway station at Stoke D'Abernon first, so at least we knew no one else had done so!

After coffee we made tracks for Plough Lane on the first leg of our ride towards Wisley. Helen's recce on Monday found a huge puddle under the Bridge End access gate to Wisley airfield, so we took Old Lane and Elm Lane instead. The latter turned out to be more of an adventure than expected, since the track marked "unsuitable for vehicles" had clearly had quite a few through, with deep puddles in the gouged out tracks, plus some lesser boggy puddles which spread almost all the way across! Fortunately Peter had traversed this route before, so he navigated us safely through to the made up end of the lane. Here we paid a short visit to the airfield  as a point of interest on the route, Don filling us in on a little of the history of the site. As we were about to depart, a couple of dogwalkers arrived to the sound of barking. One of them unloaded his van and we were treated to the sight of several terriers and a couple of staffies racing past us, barking excitedly, to have a good run over the open field.

Over the Wisley footbridge we went, then along the lane through lovely Wisley village to Pyrford Lock. Here we joined the towpath along the Wey Navigation, which we followed all the way to the bridge at Newham. This was very easy going, mostly the path is sandy rather than muddy and we enjoyed its beauties as we made our leisurely progress. 

There was a warm welcome at the Seven Stars pub and we all enjoyed delicious and generous lunches in their sunny garden.

Afterwards we headed back towards Cobham via Rose Lane and Guileshill Lane, then headed via Downside towards Bookham Common. Ten had tea at Amici in Leatherhead, which stayed open after 4pm especially for us. Then Sandy took the lead up through Ashtead and Ashtead Park, back through Epsom and then home.

Thanks to everyone for your good humour and lovely company - and for staying with the plan for the whole route. Well done especially to Cam and Sue, who really hadn't expected such a long day.

~ Helen