Central London CTC blog

It was not a good morning as I woke to heavy rain. Oh good, I thought, I can stay in bed and get out for a ride with my local group if the weather clears up later but I remembered that I had promised to ride shotgun for Angela so I reluctantly rose and got ready to ride.

Very wet on the roads to start but within a short time the rain stopped so I was only damp by the time I arrived at Baker Street to find that there were only two others apart from the ride leader who were prepared to ride. Angela, Rob Saunders; who was joining us on his first CTC ride after I had met him on Rapha West ride a couple of weeks earlier and Jon McColl were the hardy souls. At Finchley Road Dawn and Charlie Keep joined us so the group was a nice size.

At Amersham the weather was not much better but at least it was not raining. We were quickly onto the road and once we had started riding all thoughts of how miserable the morning was soon evaporated. Inevitably there were a few nasty stretches but considering how much rain there had been overnight and in the previous few days road conditions were good. Before lunch the riding was interrupted by a brief stop for a puncture repair which gave me the opportunity to practice my repair skills and also to test Jon’s new and extremely small pump. The pump passed its road test with flying colours as it got the tyre to operating pressure without too much effort. We were treated to an unexpected ride up Longdown Hill, to Askett, by a late decision of Angela to amend the route so we had managed to get a good quota of hills before lunch having also explored the slopes on the north side of the Misbourne Valley.

The lunch stop was supposed to have been at Russell Arms at Butlers Cross but we discovered after a wait of about ten minutes that our fears were justified as the pub is shut down. Fortunately, having come through Bishopstone earlier we had noticed a pub there so we returned there and we were ready for lunch at about 12:30.The pleasant staff at The Harrow then informed us that they did not start serving lunch until 13:00 but our leader made an executive decision to wait. I think it was helped by the fact that a local said that the next option was The Dinton Hermit which would costs twice as much. Angela and I had stopped at The Dinton Hermit on one of our recce rides and found the food to be good but pricey and eventually discounted it as a lunch venue as they did not start serving lunch until 12:30! Lunch was good and the additional wait meant we had plenty of time for bike and general social chatter which was useful as Rob was making his debut with CTC. However the time that we spent chatting seemed short and we were soon back on the roads which had been freshened by a heavy shower.

The afternoon session started with us reversing the route we had ridden in the morning through Ford before crossing the Chilterns by going through Bledlow and then Loosely Row. After that it was then a fast downhill onto the valley road and a swift pedal to Great Missenden. At one point there we even shadows on the road as the sun threatened to make an appearance.

Fortunately at Missenden we overshot the Roald Dahl museum and tea rooms and spotted the sign to the church so up the hill we went for tea. Tea was excellent and we had an extended break as one of Jon’s tyres had gone down after we arrived at the church. Once more his new pump was pressed into action and performed admirably.

All too soon we were back at Amersham and after a short wait for a train were on the way back to town. Thanks to all who decided to turn out on what was an unpromising day and were rewarded for their boldness. Special thanks to Angela for leading and pressing on despite a few showers during the day.