The forecasted sunshine today took it's time to appear, so a second layer for everyone as we set off from Cantley this morning. No one was cold by the time we climbed Carters Hill of course. 😉 Still bunged up with last week's cold, I held back for a nose blow, with Rose, as the ladies crossed over into the track opposite Billingbear Road. We didn't see them again for a while. I share the route with everyone now so it's nice to relax a bit and let others do the leading. The only problem is they don't all have mirrors, so have no idea who is following..... so they didn't miss us "leaders" 😂.
We all caught up again as we joined Bottle Lane, and divided into two groups for the ride along Howe Lane and through Paley Street to Holyport. I was on the lookout for my first photo, and stopped at this impressive wall on the quiet Langworthy Lane, Holyport.
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| Langworthy Lane, Holyport. |
Julie offered to take a photo with us in it, but actually I just wanted the architecture. 😅. I then went ahead a little to capture the group riding on Langworthy Lane.
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| Julie up front |
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| Caroline, Sue |
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| Rose, Andrea and Louise |
My route plan was to cycle on Holyport Road to then join the shared cycle/footpath along the A308 to the cafe, which I have done before. Julie, who runs in this area, came alongside and said she knew of another way to get there, so we turned around to join Stroud Farm Road. As you can see from the map below, it certainly wasn't a quicker way, especially having got as far as we did on our planned route. But a nice track anyway, which was actually a footpath, but wide enough that any pedestrian were not bothered by us. (had we turned right just before Springfield Park, we could have sneeked through onto another track to come out closer to the cafe entrance.) As it happened we emerged not far from the roundabout I had planned to come to anyway.😂
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| The footpath track off of Stroud Farm Road. A good surface. |
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| ok, so they are plastic. |
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| Photo by Rose. We all still have jackets on. Mostly Pink shades today. |
We left the cafe, to do the short section of the cyclepath along the A308, then to Bray where we pulled off for a photo stop at the green alongside The Causeway. And at last the sun was coming out.
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| Team Orro. 4 riders today out of 7 on Orro bikes. (Gill had to cancel or we would have been 5 of 8). We love our Orro bikes. (photo by Rose)   Next we headed across the A308 and into Kimber Lane to use the pedestrian bridge over the A404.   We crossed the bridge and on the other side the sun suddenly felt really warm, so we all peeled off that extra layer. 23degrees at last. And now the quiet Ockwell Road, not too far from where Julie lives. We turned into Woodlands Avenue, and to Snowball Hill, where a very strange noise stopped us in our tracks. It was a drone whizzing directly overhead, and the person flying it was straight ahead of us. He brought it to land rather suddenly. I asked it he was just practicing? And was he allowed to do it so close to the airport? He was not very engaging, and I suspect flying it without a licence so close to White Waltham airport! He looked rather uncomfortable about my questioning him.  A loop now through White Waltham to Beehams Heath and to the 5 way junction at Waltham St Lawrence..... where I spotted a nice little scene on the right, so shouted to the group to carry on and I would catch them up.    had a moment, and by the time it restarted they had dashed into the corner with them Mums. I now had some catching up to do, and for the second time today, lost my group.😍 But of course Rose was with them. I caught them up on Plough Lane. Our final section through Hurst to Winnersh. Thanks to Rose and the ladies for joining me today for our "Crocodile Route". (see below). And well done to Sue who would have done almost 40 miles by the time she got home.  |