by adrian » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:08 pm
As others have described above, yesterday's ride had been pretty eventful before we'd even got to the start of the loop at Westhumble.
I'd intended to do the CTC course in Huw's group, but left the house late - as per bleedin' usual - and had to dash to CSS to catch anyone at all. Got there to be waved straight on by Monty as a group containing Grahame B, Graham O (I think - sorry if I'm wrong) and Matt from Clapham was just leaving.
At the lights at Reigate it was established (passive verb alert) that Matt, Graham and I would try to catch up Huw's group, so we embarked upon a mad dash along the A25. We'd almost certainly have attained our goal, but I fell victim to the pothole that, by the looks of it, had done for Kevin and Ray minutes earlier. Graciously, a largish group stopped to wait while I changed my tubes, and Marek generously offered me the use of his super-duper track pump (a gesture of solidarity from one member of the 6'4"-plus union to another, and much appreciated).
We were now the ensemble that George describes, and from Ranmore onwards, the lactic-inducing fun began in earnest. In such a strong group I was always going to struggle a bit , but just about managed to hang on most of the time - luckily for me, the group regrouped quite regularly.
After the most expensive tea and cake in the Northern Hemisphere (yep, Shere), I employed a number of canny delaying tactics - wandering up the road for water, locking myself in the toilet - but to no great avail, and we were soon on our way again and heading towards the climb up Whitedown, which was much, much worse than I'd remembered it. Where the drag up from the Guildford Road had been frightful (had me Effingham blinding), and Ranmore had been beastly, Whitedown was wholly in the realm of the simply ghastly.
Made it over OK, but after that I was only with the others in a spiritual sense. Most of the time my only contact with them was visual - ie I could see Kevin about 500 yards ahead. I seemed to rally up Box Hill, which now appeared tame in comparison to what had gone before, and found the others sunning themselves outside the hilltop caff. Not for the first time that day, I was caught napping when we moved on again and had to use up much of my now-dwindling reserves to catch up. George took pity on me and helped me back on, but the boys were clearly going for it along the Walton Heath road and dropped me for good and all this time.
Another hour later I was home, in the bath and with a beer, both of which I'd been looking forward to for about three hours, reflecting on what had been an excellent but for me challenging day on the bike, in genial company.
Still don't know what happened to the multi-purpose wine cork I'd brought with me and had been promising Kevin all the way round.
Thanks all - see you next time.