B Ride report 24th July: Horley Here We Come!

 Francis begins ….

A glorious summer day’s forecast looked promising to attract a lot of riders out and so it proved to be after 24 riders joined me for Elevenses at the Dorking Community Centre.

My first group (John A, Martin, Stephen, Karl, Keith and Pete B (back-marker)) set off promptly at 10.40am in bright sunshine for the relatively short 18 miles ride to Horley and a sumptuous alfresco lunch at The Jack Fairman pub. My Garmin played ball as we rode through familiar roads through Henfold, Newdigate, Rusper and Charlwood with luckily little traffic on the roads. Maybe it was the start of the schools’ summer break in that area.

A nice surprise was Sue F joining us for lunch and the afternoon ride back to Leatherhead.

My afternoon route was originally 24.5 miles but on the recce, my two sub-leads complained it was too long and hilly which I took on board and cut nearly 5 miles off to settle on just under 20 miles. In doing so, quite a few of the hills had now gone which made the return leg through lesser known road through Smallfield, Woodhatch, Whitebushes, Betchworth to Leatherhead much more enjoyable for all.

My thanks to Pete for his patient back-marking, and his eagle eyes spotting Martin’s rear light had fallen off and retrieving it off the road for him. Lastly, my sub-leaders Mick and Dave for their excellent leadership of their groups. A very enjoyable day’s ride in superb weather.

Mick continues….

I wasn’t so much leading as being chaperoned by Steph, Julie, Ian W, Ann B, Brenda and Ken (for the morning), all very experienced and knowing their way round. After being corrected by the group we managed to find our way out of Dorking and into the hills. I confidently told the group that there were only hills for the first 10 miles but this was not a deliberate lie just a lack of recall :-( We grinded our way up the hills, particularly the one by Henfold Lakes, and rode on to Rusper. We then turned east towards our lunch stop in Horley. Just before Charlwood, we got the opportunity to inspect the undercarriages of jets taking off from Gatwick over us. Lunch at The Jack Fairman in Horley was predictably good and quick, Wetherspoons has definite advantages.

Within the hour we were off again, in the sun heading towards Earlswood Common where we took a photograph overlooking the Lower Earlswood Lake. Off again, we were soon in Brockham where we took the familiar route to Leatherhead past the golf course and through Pixham.

 Many thanks to the group for your good company, Francis for the route and Steph for being my backup as well as back-marking.

Dave(Fixie) ends with …..

After the buzzing swarm of cyclists had subsided from our Elevenses venue, at Dorking Community Centre, the eight of us remaining Wayfarers made a slightly delayed departure. Urgency wasn't required, since the weather and the cyclists were in good spirits.

Cotmandene was the first bump we encountered along our route, but didn't present any problems for our group, then onwards to Henfold Hill whereupon our neat line of cyclist broke formation at this point, probably emulating the leader who was slipstreamed by a Car climbing the hill. (Normally the other way around!)

After another handful of miles, a few of our group decided to go on a Tiger Hunt? Terry had seen it on a ride back in March so hopefully it was still still there. We were worried that the Tiger might have encountered Christina, but thankfully Christina was found alive & well in Charlwood by the Tiger hunters as the Tiger had luckily moved on.

We arrived at Horley just after 1pm. Rested and refuelled, nine of us headed off to our ride completion point in Leatherhead.

Thanks to my fellow cyclists, for your good & happy company: Anne, Christina, Karen, Maddie, Colin (back-marker), Grant, Terry, & Tony Hr. Also thanks Francis for putting together the ride.