There were a couple of important TTs on fetauring ACC members which explains this pathetically low turnout
24° was forecast (they got that wrong by about 23°) - it was cold, especially leaving the cafe.
Anyway - the training group was predictably a madhouse with Paul H tapping out a steady 25mph up the hill out of Coulsdon. The Merckx man was still high on his Belgian adventure so every time Paul showed a sniff of slowing down he'd come through and raise the pace back up to acceptable levels.
I showed my hand on the front through Merstham but Merckx ripped our legs off up Gatton so I wasn't stupid (or fast) enough to try that again. Through the lanes was a relentless 27-30mph express with the usual suspects on the front. Toby joined in this sluggfest and politely suggested that a couple of others might like to come through too. I politely informed him that the others in question would be more than happy to oblige if they were a) capable b) able to breath and c) in possesion of full use of their primary internal organs particularly heart and lungs. Actually I think I expressed it a lot more concisely than that. "F**k **f" might have been my exact words.
Paul's bike developed a curious high pitched whine from the bottom bracket area which became more and more pronounced the faster he wound up the pace. Any reasonable man would have slowed at this point and spared his machine (which was howling in agony) further torture, but he was having none of it.
On the hill up to Rusper and the two chief protagonists got a gap which in my devastated condition I was quite happy to let them keep, until Toby and Chris K set off in pursuit and dragged me with them, flying along the descent toward the climb before the Dual carriageway.
The group had split at Rusper, come together just before the hill and split again on the climb which was murderous. There was more off and on than a 70s German porn movie but we regrouped at the lay-by for a brief respite before the T&O. That was tidy(ish) and very fast - I kept looking at the speedo because I had the impression that between each roundabout the speed was ratcheting up (sometimnes the T&O can be slower than the ride down due to concentrating on good technique, but not a bit of it here - the last flat section before the turn to Charlwood we were knocking out 35mph
The run in to the sprint just got hairier and hairier but stayed together until Paul and Stu hatched some devious plan to work the Shadow over (I think money changed hands too) and played us like suckers - we were all over the road at the sign.
22.9 avergae, so if anybody at CSS tells you the training group is going out at 21mph walk away... just walk away. Thank god George wasn't there is all I can say, cos he likes to go faster than the fastest guy
After that it was a very amiable social ride back with no fireworks for me but I think Chris K and the Shadow beat up some guy in a car and there was a motorcycle stunt rider doing dangerous stuff all over the road outside Regalinos.
Yet another excellent ACC ride in a summer of excellent rides, hope everyone had an incident free day.
...sure enough my suspisions were right and paul attacked half way along the straight, but i stuck on his wheel. as soon as he started to slow i then attacked him, and he was too feeble to counter me 
. I hoped the short stop and a nice steady thru&off would help me and somehow miraculously make me feel better, but no chance, I felt just the same. My performance didn't seem to be too affected though, so I can't use that as an excuse for the next bit 
. Where was everyone? As planned Paul wasn't going to chase, hopefully making me do the chasing and tiring myself out. Toby had his own plan of sitting on my wheel for a change, so he too didn't chase stu down. 
By the time I did catch him, sprinting was no longer an option and there was a large number of riders ready to take off from behind. Toby got caught thinking I was going to sprint but didn't, leaving Paul and others to fly past and on to glory 