I had booked a table for 7 of us for noon at Wheelwright Arms, Winnersh. Andrea would drive to meet the rest of us who were cycling. Jeanette was keen to use her normal bike today, so with a gentle route in mind, we started our at 10am, with an 18 mile ride to lunch.
We went over Carter's Hill, where after a horribly wet day yesterday, the ditches were really full.
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| Beautiful morning, but lots of water in the ditches on Carter's Hill |
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| A quick breather at the top. |
Next, we dropped down passing Binfield Church, then into Ryehurst Lane. The lane had clearly been flooded since there was debris all over the road, but the water level had dropped. Near the far end of Ryehurst Lane, I saw Martina looking back at her rear tyre. 😖
We moved to a spot in the sunshine, so at least we kept warm. It took an age to get the tyre off the rim, but once we had done that, all easy going. I used my tyre level forceps thingy to get the tyre back on. No culprit found, so fingers crossed that she wouldn't get a second puncture.
Pictures by Louise of a team effort......
We must have taken at least 20 mins to fix it, so decided to cut the planned route short to hope to reach the pub by noon. At least Andrea would be there to hold the table but didn't want her waiting too long.
We stuck to the route to Shurlock Row, then continued straight on to WSLawrence X Roads, where we started our loop back towards Hurst. A quick stop at the pond to see the Xmas crochet display.
And a quick dash down the main road now to lunch at the Wheelwright Arms, where Andrea was waiting for us. The pub was busy, but service was very good, as was the food. We mostly had light bites.
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| All 7 of us don't meet up very often. |
