Well, what a beautiful sunny day for our ride. We split into four groups today for our 20 mile ride, the fast, the not quite so fast and the family groups. There were so many families with children today that this group had to split in two, with Spencer leading one group and Adam the other.

Registration

The faster two groups set off around 10 am from Hayes and being in the family group I can only assume that they had a thoroughly good ride, stopped for their allocated tea and coffee stop at Christmas Tree Farm and all got safely home.

76 Riders in all today

As I was bringing up the rear I can only report on our family group ride. A terrific turnout as always for Adam’s Brighton Training Ride, which now seems to be an annual event.

‘The first part of the ride will be a slow drag uphill’ said Spencer and he wasn’t wrong, with a few fairly big hills along the way. Well done to everyone, whether you cycled up them or walked for part of the way, it was a fantastic achievement.

The Lovely Lanes of North West Kent

We reach the top of Westerham where we stopped for a short break and just a few minutes behind us was Adam with his group. Everyone was in good spirits, probably the spring like weather we were having, such a pleasant change from the gales and torrential rain of late. A puncture shortly afterwards slowed us up for around 15 minutes, but our ride leader soon sorted it out and then we were on our way.

Then in was onwards and upwards until we reached the Tally Ho at Knockholt. There were rumours that Christmas Tree Farm was closed so our group decided to stop here for our break, especially when we saw the chips.

A few tired legs by now, but we set off again at a respectable pace, with a few good downhills to look forward to. Unfortunately, as we all know, when you go downhill there is always an uphill before too long. And this one certainly was a challenge. It was long and quite steep, but a few made it without getting off and for everyone else, well done, walking was not that much easier.

The finishing post was now in site and we set off for Hayes without further ado. Thank you very much to all of our ride leaders today, but a special thank you to Adam for organising it. A thoroughly enjoyable ride.

DON’T FORGET THE NEXT ONE IS IN A FEW WEEKS TIME – SEE YOU THERE.

More pix in our Yahoo Group Page