As mentioned earlier this Sunday's ride will start ftom the Old Moat at 11 am with lunch at the Plough Inn in Leigh and then finish in Leatherhead at a cafe to be decided by us all.
I have now managed to find a way of providing the gpx route in this post... you can download the route at:
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/54361611?privacy_code=0vLQOh8bZbCMGR94ShLIquVyBuCTjO5z
Have a great weekend and look forward to seeing you on Sunday
Bernard P
I promised a few hills, but we got hills with knobs on. It felt like hills with hills on.
My intentions were good, to ride the lovely Thorncombe Street and see the horses head sculptures. But the only horses heads we saw were extremely lifelike, as they were attached to real horses. Beautiful scenery, but no sculptures. Instead, my route followed a different bit of Thorncombe Street, down a lovely valley - at first - then up some fierce hills. Still beautiful, but lacking in the horses head department. Luckily we had strong group of riders, and I couldn't quite hear what they were saying when they saw the big hills for the first time.
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| Full of the joys of spring |
It started with a long climb up to elevenses at West Horsley Place, a new venue for us. It's a manor house open to the public and operatic centre, with a bus collection, although we didn't see any of that. We sat in the sunshine as more and more riders rolled in - twelve in all. Diane, Niall and Terry weren't coming on the ride (lucky them) and we left them having an extended elevenses chat, before Diane and Niall headed down to Ripley for more sustenance and chat.
We went up and over to Shere, up again to Farley Green, a bit more up and then down to Shamley Green, Wonersh and Bramley. Then it was up Snowdenham lane to arrive at the start of Thorncombe Street. If you haven't been, you really should, it's beautiful. The scenery reminded me of the Windows XP desktop picture, only better.
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| No horses |
At the village of Thorncombe Street we took the right turn into Thorncombe Street, rather than the left turn, which is called Thorncombe Street. It was all lovely, until we got near Hascombe and turned right to Mare Lane (what is it about horses around there?). It was a 'mare of a hill, but it led to some very pretty woods; Hydon Heath and Busbridge Woods. A short step from there to the Jack Phillips for lunch.
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| What a lovely hill! |
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| Are we nearly there yet? |
Since our recent Wayfarers ride to Godalming I have a considerable knowledge about Jack Phillips, the radio operator on the Titanic. I tried to interest the group in an educational discussion about Jack Phillips, but they were not that interested, so I made them go and look at his memorial stone in Farncombe. You can find out more in the wonderfully-named Encyclopedia Titanica. Afterwards we rode over the hill at Littleton to Guildford, where Brenda left us, and the rest of us headed to Ripley for tea. We were disappointed to find that Diane and Niall had already left without waiting for us, but on the plus side, Pinnocks was still open at 4pm and we had tea and cake (and what a cake!) outside in the sunshine.
Thank you to all of you for venturing to East Horsley and to those of you who came on the ride, I hope your legs stop hurting soon. Thanks also to Alan for back marking and encouragement to the hill climbers, and Andy for photos.
Spring is in the air!
This Sunday we will have an adventurous ride to Godalming, via Shere, Farley Green and Hascombe so there will be plenty of scenery and a few hills. It's about 20 miles to lunch at the Jack Phillips, named after the radio operator on the Titanic. We'll return through Guildford and back to Ripley for tea, another 15 miles.
Elevenses is at the Tiger Lily Bus Cafe, West Horsley Place, probably best reached by riding to East Horsley, and turning right at the Duke of Wellington pub onto the A246 - after about 1/4 mile you will see the main entrance to West Horsley Place, just before the church on the left.
I hope you can join us.
The ride on Sunday started at the Golden Cafe in Addlestone, which it being Mother’s Day was extremely busy, but all nine of us managed to get seated, very lucky. Good that Pam and Diane were there to join us for elevenses.
The seven riders headed off to New Haw where we joined the Wey Canal, leaving before Woking. Then on to Ripley, Send and Sutton Green before reaching Jacob’s Well where took the cycle route including the footbridges in Guildford. Back onto the canal which took us towards the station and lunch at The Rodboro Buildings.
Six stayed for lunch and surprisingly the pub was not crowded, luckily, so we could sit together.
After lunch we took the usual Dave W route out of Guildford, taking the cycle path along side the A3 towards Ripley then Cobham and tea at Claremont Gardens, Esher, the Cafe at the National Trust. Prior to that Dave E and then Niall and Martina left the group to go home, so only three of us went to tea.
Thanks everyone for your company and your friendship in making it such a successful day.
Jennie
