For Gill's first ride as leader, she chose a familiar route from Cantley to Stubbings Nursery for coffee. She doesn't often plan routes on Garmin. Just makes it up as she goes along, or is following a route which has been shared with her.
She had a bit of trouble getting the route she wanted to follow onto her Garmin to share. Her ride originally was in 2 halves. The problem was that some was not accessible to vehicles. Incase anyone else reading this struggles with that, here is what to do.
When you create your course, it defaults to follow "most popular routes". Sometimes the route you are creating does not fall in to that category, so it diverts. To get around this click on the COURSE OPTIONS, Edit (in blue). This opens a new window, where there are 2 more options. One is called Most Direct, and the other Freehand. Once you have done the part of the route which was difficult using Freehand, go back into Edit and change back to Most Popular or most direct.
We were a group of 8 in total and started out from Cantley, heading to Binfield Road, to join Monks Alley. With all the hot dry weather lots of leaves already down, and looking almost autumnal. It was around 19 degrees as we set off and felt so fresh after 2 months of no rain. A little rain overnight, and hopefully more to come in the next few days.
Route screenshot at end
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| Amy, Louise, Clare, Wendy, Gill, Kate and Diane on Monks Alley. Gill will need to wait for her Leaders T Shirt. |
A wiggle through Binfield, Ryehurst Lane and Westley Mill to join Howe Lane to Paley Street. As we approached the pedestrian Bridge over the M4, a dog walker warned us that there was 4 or 5 "lorries" at the bridge, so we would have to squeeze past. The "lorries" turned out to be vans, so not so big and we passed with no trouble.
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| Emerging out of the tree canopy of Snowball Hill Amy just ahead of me. |
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| Bottom of Snowball Hill. |
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| The crops cut early this year, since they ripened well ahead of time. |
In 2 groups for the next couple of miles to gradually climb on Canon Lane to cross the A4 and towards Pinkneys Green. The Common with not much interest atm. Just parched grass. A short section on the Henley Road to drop down to Stubbings under the A404.
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| Gill, Diane, Wendy, Kate,Clare, Louise, Any and Anne (we all look different with helmet off) |
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| Getting ready to leave Stubbings. |
Gill wanted to cut through the Woods of Maidenhead Thicket, but wasnt quite sure of the way, so left me to lead that bit. I wasnt quite sure either of the BEST route (there are many!), so a combined effort with Diane assisting got us through on a good wide path most of the way. We emerged to cross the A4 at Cherry Garden Lane.
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| Shottesbrook Park |
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| Shottesbrook Park. Kate at the front here. Her first time through Shottesbrook |
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| Diane, Louise and Clare. |
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| A lora lora bleeting from sheep today! Loads of them. |
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| Some down on their knees drinking from the lake. |
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| And still more sheep as we headed to our exit gate |
Back via Beenham's Heath to Shurlock Row. I suggested that it made sense for Gill to leave in Hurst to head straight home. So our leader abandoned us! Lol. Not a problem. Over the motorway and back to Cantley.
Congratulations to Gill on her first ride as leaders. She is so keen that she is leading another tomorrow, assisted by another of our new leaders, Janet.
