Shame you couldn't make it Davy, perhaps the knees still need TLC?
That was absolutely brilliant. I was up dark and early to get the 5.32 train up from Hilsea- nearly missed it, set off only to realise I'd not got my glasses, made it onto the platform just as the train arrived. Phew! Made it to HPC before anyone else, gave me a chance to have a good look at the Arch and surroundings (well, I don't generally see it in daylight!). Never seen the corner itself so quiet...
Didn't have long to wait until first Adam & then the rest turned up. Cue usual gentle jibes about the rucksack. It was LIGHT (no bladder, only had the two bottles on the bike- might have underdone the hydration for once, the Abus lock stayed at home in favour of the not-in-any-way-secure cable freebie, food consisted of only a couple of cereal bars (forgot the gels), lights, pump, inner tubes, tyre levers and multi-tool. That was it, honest....
Anyway, first part was a little slow, on account of our one-and-only puncture, suffered by Ian. Geoffrey joined us at Putney Bridge, and the pace picked up nicely. The half-lap of Richmond Park was nice (more cyclists than drivers, massively so). On we went through Kingston, Thames Ditton, Esher and Guildford. Milford saw an entirely unprovoked and unintentionally amusing burst of horn-blowing from some idiot woman in a Renault Megane. I got a blast even though she'd already got past me & I hadn't held her up in any way. I also got a short diatribe from some bloke in a Skoda- apparently I was on the wrong side of the road or something (I think he meant 'the bit of road I'm on', another one I didn't hold up but moaned anyway!). We then joined the A286, and I think the consensus was that it didn't quite live up to Simon's praise. It was a damn good work-out though (I seem to have inadvertently added to my own workload by having underinflated tyres, but I wasn't going that slowly nonetheless!). And some of the scenery was indeed lovely. And not all of the sweeping fast descents were followed by gruelling ascents, just most of them...
We were running a bit later than Simon's rather optimistic reckoning of a 1pm finish, but as we got nearer Chichester the easier terrain saw us move a bit more quickly. We went down through Fishbourne (no, don't know that road..lol, it's a regular part of my weekend runs), skirted round Chichester itself, then down to East Wittering & arrival at the temporary Legg residence at ten to two. Simon, Susie & young Daisy were splendid hosts, and the pasta and crumble went down a treat, though they might be eating all the remaining pasta for the rest of the week. At about a quarter to three, we took our leave (after Simon spotted and sorted my tyre problem..!), and we all went up to Chichester station, no-one riding back, and in my case then on home. Took the longer way round to make sure I passed the ton for the day. Total mileage was indeed on target- 103. Thanks one and all!
NB: Loading up the route part-way into the ride (causing the first part to be automatically saved & timers etc cleared) seems to have screwed up both files for the first and second parts. Got the timings etc, but not the route. Grr.