Write up for Sunday ride 12th July 2026
Bernard
All of ten minutes, less even, that’s how long it took to plan the route. It was 4am early in the week. Sitting in my Woolworth’s deckchair in the back garden listening to Tom next door hosing his lawn and whistling tunefully “summertime and the living is easy”. It was heatwave season and sleeping normal hours was impossible. I tapped Garmi, who was snoozing next to me and with a blurp and buzz he opened one eye and showed me the route... “Fantastic” I thought. I had mastered route planning – pop in the starting place and plug in the ending spot and I had my green line. No need even to check the details; my new app ‘Genius Router’ had done it all. As the advertising blurb had proudly (and in my opinion very wisely) announced “why waste time routing when you can be riding”. Garmi burped and went back to sleep. I chuckled at how smooth the life of a subbie had become. All I had to do was make sure Garmi was fully charged for the day’s ride. I stretched out my arms and folded them behind my head just as a robin landed on the handle of my rusty old shovel which I had left implanted in the lawn a couple of years ago just before wilding (my prayers were answered) came into vogue... an approach to gardening and life for that matter much in keeping with my own ‘laissez faire’ attitude to matters in general. Robbie chirped, Garmi snoozed, Tom hosed and I hummed along to the easy living tune as I early morning dreamed of the gentle rolling landscapes on our recci in just a few hours’ time.
It was in Fetcham when the thought occurred to me that we hadn’t seen much of the gentle, lolloping hills that Surrey was famous for. Just up ahead I saw a sign, a big blue one, with an oversized two headed white arrow, one pointed left to the M25 Gatwick and the other right also to the M25 but towards Heathrow. I then realised that we seemed to have drifted onto some kind of hard shoulder with a long line of fast travelling vehicles, some very large, no more accurately said huge, speeding past us. Somehow, we found ourselves in Dante’s Inferno... nothing but grey tarmac and a never stream of mad drivers’ intent on killing anything and everything and especially (going by all the honking and swearing in our direction) cyclists... and blue motorway signs all over the place. I made a decision, one that every subbie makes in times of crisis “Let’s stop and try and figure out where we are and how to get out of here!”
‘Genius Router’ had brought us to a point of no return and was now demanding that I sign up to an exorbitant non-cancellable ten-year plan. Garmi was also of little help... suffering from obvious stress and at critical anxiety levels, his compass was wobbling in all directions and suffering from chronic repeat blurping “...alert...turn around...alert turn around...” “I don’t think this is a good route for Sunday” Sabina cooly interjected. I tried to get a grip of my nervous twitching and managed to nod, with a wobble or two, in agreement. She pointed ahead to a little side lane (the sort of lane where enthusiastic club members take photos in their determined struggle to win the club’s snapshot photo trophy). And soon we were off that ghastly road and spotted a sign to the promised land, it read “Leatherhead”.
We eventually got to Polesden Lacey. On our way there I marvelled at how friendly members of the public can be to lost and desperate cyclists and it filled my heart with warmth towards my fellow bipeds except those which I saw getting out of their cars in the car park... for them the best I could do was hiss.
At home I got out my ordnance survey map which had proved its worth and value as a tea and coffee coaster ever since its purchase some good few years ago. I managed with great skill to peel apart its gelled pages. With even greater skill I guessed at the names of roads and towns which were hidden under torn bits of map (some parts had gelled and I had to go full rip apart mode resulting in a few bits of the map being torn from one place and stuck on another). Nevertheless, with what i would describe as the eye of a great explorer I got an idea of the lay of the land as us subbies say and with Sabina pointing to where we needed to go, I put together a route Marco Polo would be proud to call his own.
The new route plugged in... (this is now the obligatory describe the actual route part of this write up... the professional bit if you like); down from Polesden Lacey, right up Chaple Lane, whizz through Westhumble, under the A24 and then along the gentle slopes of the Surrey Hills, via Headley and into Epsom. It was a hot day but by chance a lot of the ride was in the shade thanks to some very big trees on either side of the roads.
We arrived at the Whetherspoon and met up with some veterans of the club, Ed, Terry and Colin who made me realise there was still a lot for me to learn as a subbie. Outside I sat on a bench not realising until later that it had a plaque on it which read something akin to “sit here if you want to talk to someone”. I rested my bike against its side. To my surprise an elderly gentleman sat next to me, he had a graceful and gentle aura about him, I notice his wedding ring, and he said in a soft voice “we used to cycle ...”, “the Surrey Hills” I asked, “absolutely, the Surrey Hills were Ethel’s favourite....”
My fellow riders were:
Andy C, David W, Eric, Simon L, Niall, Ruth, Steph and Sabina. Diane rode as well and met us at elevenses and for lunch in Epsom where we were also joined by Ed, Colin and Terry. Keith met us at elevenses.
