From the Toks' organized fast group.
Excellent and disciplined fast ride down to the cafe via extended dual carriageway route on saturday. Keeping things together ie not allowing anyone to attack and break things up on the hills, we managed to get about 12 riders down to the cafe in a constant through-and-off which started before Merstham and finished with the sprint at Charlwood.
Average of 20mph on the nose, not bad as there were a lot of traffic hold-ups and a couple of planned 'recovery' intervals. Riders visibly struggling were encouraged to miss turns and sit on the back 'till they could contribute again which meant we kept everyone together for the most part.
Strong guys out included Jim, Graham O, two Pauls, Matt, Toks and Jesse (the Detroit Spinner who kicked our arses round the hills on Wednesday night).
The excellent through and off on the Dual Carriageway put the entire bunch in with a shout at the sprint which Toks got just ahead of Jim and myself (Jim having ridden the DC solo ahead of us for TT training - good effort that man!)
The lure of Arsenal v Tottenham meant four of us headed back sans tea/cake/rest - Toks, Jesse, Andrew and me. Despite intentions of steady return, Toks pointed out that we were doing 22mph through the lanes with little effort (super compentation is a wonderful thing). Jesse revealed that he was a former US National rowing champion (on more than one occasion) which explains a lot about his aerobic capacity on wednesday.
Excellent and structured ride aimed at helping riders step up to the fast group from the 18 group and, who knows, maybe start racing. There are enough faster riders out on saturday's to offer a group like this every week and it will hopefully become a regular. Highly reccomended.
Good idea by Toks