Central London CTC blog

The group take a moment after completing the lung-busting climb up the South Downs escarpment from Kingston - Charlie hopes he's not going to have to tell them they didn't need to go up it.

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RSF/CTC joint ride 17 May 2009

This was a joint ride of the Rough Stuff Fellowship [RSF] and the Cyclists Touring Club [CTC]. Most RSF members tend to be in the CTC as well so there was quite an overlap of memberships. The weather forecast was changeable and so it proved. It was raining when we assembled at the Brown Box Café in Harpenden, sunny shortly after we set off , raining again soon afterwards and so it continued all day. Most of us ended up keeping our waterproofs on as it seemed to start raining again whenever we took them off. more »

…what more do you want?! A decent turnout of five on such an unpromising day made our way to Wendover and set off up a nice steep slippery, chalky track with leaves clogging the brakes, coming off every ten years and walking half of it, brilliant!! The woods were somewhere between atmospheric and spooky, fog lying thick and cool in the still air. A couple of steep descents and a couple of gradual climbs led us to an early lunch as the Rising Sun in Little Hampden (by way of an ”over the handlebars and into a freezing muddy puddle” manoevre for me) where almost all of us had roquefort and tomato paninis - good move as it turned out, they were lovely.  We made out way back towards Wendover on a different route with a long, leafy, rooty descent the highlight, after which we dropped people back at the station in stages as we took in a couple of extra loops around a brutal climb up a road on the other side of the town which gives access to a cracking long rolling descent, with the remaining two getting on the train just as dusk was falling. I always worry that the train staff might declare us “too muddy to travel” on the way back from off-road rides, but thankfully not this time!

Thanks to all for a great day out!

Arriving at Victoria I thought to myself, “There’s an awful lot of people getting tanked up in the Wetherspoons considering its 8.30am, and they’re all singing and wearing blue shirts.” I’d never considered a Portsmouth cup run as being a significant enough possibility to incorporate into ride planning, but we live and learn.

Once we’d extricated ourselves from this melee and travelled down to Lewes we were found to have a team of seven, and, joyously, nobody had turned up without knobblies.
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Saturday in the Chilterns was a gorgeous clear autumn day. Copper leaves carpeting the woodland floor, not a breath of wind, warm in the sun and cool in the shade.

The area just north-east of Princes Risborough has some great off-road riding, mostly wooded bridleways which seem very under used – we only encountered a couple of other cyclists and one or two walkers and horses. As suggested on the rides list it was muddy, more so than I had expected as there had only been one day of rain in the previous week, but not so much as to hinder progress much. There were a couple of decent climbs and one bit just after lunch which a mountain goat with crampons would have struggled on and even Marianne had to push for a bit. more »

My own stupidity amazes even myself sometimes! Although I’ve caught the train to Box Hill many times before, always from Victoria, on this occasion my autopilot took me to Waterloo! Fortunately I noticed a missed call on my mobile, rang back and spoke to Charlie at Victoria who was wondering where I was. Jumped on the next train to Clapham Junction in the hope of meeting the Box Hill train but at Clapham there are too many platforms and not enough information (and I’d probably missed it anyway!) so I caught one to Leatherhead and cycled the last couple of miles to Box Hill. Only 20 minutes late in the end, half of which would probably have been lost to faffing anyway!

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Well, a magnificent sunny November day brought the “Magnificent 7” to Boxhill Station. It would have been the magnificent 8 but Marion missed the train, we did try to link up latter but it did not work out. Marion did let me know later that she had quite a good if lonely morning anyway.Our ride today was a sort of figure of 8 based around Boxhill. Paul, Kerryn (first timer, welcome Kerryn) Marieanne. Tim, Mark and Ailan from across the river, (thanks for joining us gents) and I, made up the magnificent 7. “Ah” a grand site as we first headed off to the toilets at the nearby car park!

Then up to the North Downs ridge, but this time by an easier more scenic route than on my last ride, through Denbies vineyards which looks out over the valley, Dorking to our left and on the other side of the valley to the right Leith Hill Tower could just be seen by the naked eye if you know it is there, the autumn leaves giving a magnificent array of colour in the bright sunshine.

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