With the first task out of the way, I turned my attention to prepping bike and self for the rendezvous on the morrow with the south Chilterns landscape. The event had seemed like a great idea when I signed up for it, but as it drew on, so my apprehension grew. What with one thing and another, I had put in very few miles over the winter, and none offroad. I realized in fact that I had done no serious offroad since the Chilterns 60km Offroad Audax … in 2008.

Woodcote sits on an elevated southerly spur of the Chilterns, and at first the course heads SW down towards the valley of the Thames. After a few miles, it veers off to the right above Mapledurham on concrete farm roads, before turning right again to parallel the left bank of the river. I bowled along in the chilly sunshine congratulating myself on the choice of the all-rigid ‘street’ MTB with 50mm semi-slick Contis. Most of the club riders were on proper cross bikes — who would have thought so many people had them? — but there was also a good number of MTBs, some of them full-on double-boingers. I did pass a guy on a single-speed, but saw no more of him.

In character this was very much an event for individual riders, with few groups taking part. Such was the nature of the terrain that riding in a group would be of little practical assistance, and I saw none forming on the way.

Of course what comes down, must go up, and soon after booming off the high ground, we engaged the first climb of the day. Still fresh, one had to remind oneself there was plenty of this to come, and to select a low gear. The route unfolds in a series of zigzags, zigging west towards Goring, and zagging back east towards Woodcote. The gruelling ascents were rewarded with several splendid open descents, with Didcot power station in clear view on the Oxfordshire plain. I attempted to make up as much time as I could on these open road sections, to exploit the fast-rolling tyres.

They were proving less suitable on the single-track and bridleway: too fat for roots and frozen ruts (thrown offline), too slick for the gloopy stuff (losing traction). But on the drier, flinty trackways they felt unburstable, promoting a wholly unjustified feeling of invincibility. The stroboscopic effect of stripes of sun flickering through the sparse hedgerow, together with bars of shadow across the track masking the major holes, meant one had to rein in the urge to let the bike fly free.

After passing the Maharajah’s Well at Stoke Row (often visited on Keith’s club rides), I reported in to the food station near Ipsden in passable shape: 50 km covered, 30 to go. But the sting of course was in the tail, with a greater proportion of offroad. First up was a gratuitous and punishing loop through the woods around Warren Hill; then, after a northward reach almost to Wallingford, the sapping climb up Brixton Hill to Nuffield, by which time I was starting to ask myself, are we nearly there?

But several more major stretches of technical offroad remained. I attached myself to a swift and capable-looking couple, the man, on a ‘cross bike, whose jersey declared him an instructor to the Dirt Divas MTB women, the woman, on a state-of-the-art MTB, surely one of his protégés, noting how they kept it simple and smooth, picking the straightest line through the rutted gunk, always spinning. It worked for me for a while but my fat smooth front tyre in its lively steel fork kept springing this way and that, finally overrunning the ruts and sending me skittering towards the trees. OK, so I just didn’t steer straight. Whatever.

I teamed up with another struggler on ill-adapted equipment, in a Hemel Hempstead CC jersey, and together we squelched through the last muddy tracks before popping out at last on to metalled road. There remained one final hill to the event HQ, with a cameraman on hand to record for posterity one’s relieved gurning.

Without a doubt, it had been a taxing day.

My time? 4 hr 14, 16 minutes adrift of the Gold standard for the 50+ group, but well within the Silver for all comers.

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.

The pub's at the bottom of this hill, please try not to run over any sheep

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.

The ride began by going though the grounds of Rothamstead agricultural research station, passing the oldest agricultural field trial in the country which has been going since 1843. We emerged onto the roads and soon passed a house which had llamas in its grounds. We looked at the llamas, they looked at us. I don’t know who were more surprised. After crossing an unpleasant roundabout on the A5, we arrived at Flamstead. We’d had to change our lunch arrangements as our original pub gave us a choice only of roasts so instead some ate their sandwiches admiring the view of the church while others ate in “The Spotted Dog”.

After lunch we followed a road along a valley bottom and then a bridle path that took us up to Gaddesden Row. On one of the bridle paths between there and Redbourn we had to pull in to let no fewer than eight horse drawn traps pass. After tea at ”The Cricketers”, some of us visited the Redbourn Museum, housed in a former silk mill, and then we followed the “Nicky Way”, a former railway line, back to Harpenden.

Thanks to all for a great day out!

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.

There’s a brutal climb up a farm track which goes straight up the South Downs ridge at the very start of this ride. I had warned people to psychologically prepare themselves for this, and most importantly not to be demoralised by it, as its the hardest climb of the day by miles and it gives you the best view. Everyone took it on the chin and on we went.

We had a bit of cow encounter shortly afterwards. I suffer from mild cow-phobia, but bravely sheltered behind other riders as we made our way through the bovine hoards, trying not to look like I was scared.

From here on the ride follows the South Downs Way all the way to Alfriston, its up and down and along the ridge. The views were fantastic as billed, which was lucky for me because when I checked out the ride there was thick fog, and I confess I had just assumed they would be there in good visibility. There’s a good variety of tracks, grassy and stony, and nicely dried out by a week of sun and wind.

Lunch at the Smugglers in Alfriston was good. Mike had to wait much too long for his fish and chips, but they delivered when they did arrive.

The route back follows a rolling old coach road all the way along the bottom of the ridge, featuring the only proper muddy bit of the ride. After this there is a road interlude through the village of Glynde before launching into the conundrum of finding Lewes train station, always tricky but not too bad on this occasion.

Thanks to all for making it a great day out.

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.

The Sun Inn at Little Hampden is a good pub for lunch, even though the management have clearly got a bit of an obsessive-compulsive thing about mud going on; to the extent that you have to put little blue bags on your shoes like a forensic pathologist. Although to be fair they must get a lot of muddy walkers and cyclists coming in, and the carpet is beige (but then again, was this the best choice of floor covering given the location.

We suffered a puncture cluster near the end of the ride, bringing the total to an annoying four (two for me), all from undiscovered sources weirdly. But aside of this the ride went very well, we had a good group made up of a couple of familiar faces in Robert, Marianne and Paul and three new riders in Penny, Laura and Anita, all of whom are training for a charity ride in India early next year.

We were a bit unlucky with the trains on the way back and ended up with almost an hour’s wait during which Robert went off for a bit more riding, Paul sunned himself on the platform, Marianne fixed a final puncture and the rest of us went for a pint.

The ride itself was drier than I’d expected after the recent rain. A leisurely off-road climb to the top of Box Hill was swiftly followed by a steep, narrow, tree-rooted descent which we all took gently and got down without falling. After a few miles of flattish on-road we took a track across Holmwood Common which wasn’t as muddy as usual. Then a short sharp climb up into Redlands Wood. When I reccied and did this ride last year the route I hoped to take was blocked off and I found another, slightly longer one. This year I saw that my original planned route was open and was faced with a “should I stick with the route I know or try the more direct one” decision. Of course I gambled, and lost, which neatly summed up our situation a few minutes later! However, by following my nose, and scrambling up a couple of steep slopes with bikes in hand, we eventually emerged onto the road exactly where I had intended! This was only a couple of minutes away from the pub (The Plough at Coldharbour) where a good lunch and some home-brewed beer was had.

Roy headed off home after lunch and the rest of us continued uphill to Leith Hill Tower. Unfortunately it was too hazy to get a Cup Final day view of the Wembley arch but the views were still pretty good. The only way from there is down and we were soon at Holmbury St. Mary where Robert left us to do some exploring. The three of us (Charlie, Marianne and myself) continued on through Peaslake to Abinger Hammer where we took tea. Very idyllic it was too – in a small garden in the sunshine with a cricket match going on over the road.

After that it was yet another climb up onto Ranmore Common, past the chuch and then a final off-road descent to Box Hill station. All in all an excellent day after a bad start – and capped by not having to clean boots, bike and bag when I got home!

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.

A nice down hill from Ranmore Common, then back up to Ranmore via Tanners Hatch for another nice down hill, then (just in case this was getting to repetitive) up to Polesden Lacey. A few small ups and downs as we headed for the bottom of Boxhill for our first break, (at the top) unfortunately in that time Mark suffered two punctures and Marianne took a bit of a tumble on some hidden roots, no damage thankfully.

As we were approaching Boxhill, police cars all over the place, thankfully not after the magnificent 7! But they did close the road (I did think of asking “do you know who I am” i.e. the “Off Road Rep for Central London CTC?” albeit only a title! But some times they display a lack of humour, so I thought better of it), which meant we had to take a detour almost back to Boxhill St to approach the hill from the other side. Ailan got a more serious puncture going up the hill with damage to the actual tyre, so he felt he needed to head home, as did Kerryn and Paul, this transformed the magnificent 7 into the “Fantastic Four” for the second half of the ride.

Down the back of Boxhill, then up through the woods to Mickleham Downs then following a few small ups and downs a welcome cup of tea on Headley Heath. Between times Marieanne reported that she had don a bit of a summersault over the bars, but again no damage thankfully.

Now on the last leg and running a little late chasing hard on the tail of daylight which was fading fast into the distance the Fantastic Four were deep in the woods when the light finally disappeared. However every cloud has a silver lining and although Marieanne, Tim and Mark could hardly see a thing I had the opportunity to test my magnificent new lights! (Let me know if this sound totally self centred?)

One last speedy dissent for me with my “new lights” and a rather cautious creep down for the others, with a report which I did not get confirmed that Mark had taken a tumble on the way down? (But again no damage done as he was ok when I saw him afterwards.)

A” magnificent” day with “fantastic” company and great weather, thanks all, and hope to meet again soon.

Robert Johnston
Off Road Rep Central London CTC (DA)!
Retired
From work, not as Off Road Rep for Central London CTC