FNRttC Friday Night Ride to the Coast Emsworth 20th April

[TimO]

For me the cost of a single to home with Rail card was £17.50'ish, the ticket man said that's far too much, is your station in the London travel zones? Yes says I, then he sells me the £13.15 Travelcard. Full fare would have been £26.50'ish based on the Rail card discount, so that's how I reckoned 1/2 price at £13.25'ish for Groupsave. If I had been going to Victoria then I'm sure you're right about Groupsave being a better deal. When I say 'ish it's because I was only slightly aware of what prices were being offered and may easily have got my calculations wrong.

I guess it also depends on where you were going. Most people were happy to go to London Victoria, for which the Super Off Peak Single was £15-90, for most journeys. A handful of journeys seem to cost £29-90 for a Super Off Peak Single, but they're slower, require more changes, and are only five minutes after a cheaper train, so it would be unusual to try and get one of those. There are £27-00 tickets, but they're Anytime Singles, and are valid on exactly the same trains that the Super Off Peak Singles are valid on (at the weekends, anyway).

So I don't quite know what was going on there, unless either the ticket bod didn't know what he was doing, or there's some odd limitation on your Rail Card. As far as I can tell, on a Network Railcard or Network Gold Card, you should have been able to get a ticket for £10-50, that would have been valid on the same trains that we got (ie a Super Off Peak Single).

 

[CharlieB]

Thoroughly enjoyed that one, apart from the rain and the little event 1½m from the end. Seeing two fairly serious offs less than a week apart is a sobering experience, and I hope all four parties are recovering well.
Nice to see Greg in good spirits at the end.

I seriously considered bailing (or should that be baling?) out at the Tadworth(?) roundabout, but decided to hang in there - there's a stage after which you can't get any wetter. What did cause all that surface water and run off? Is it a case of a dry water table simply not being able to reabsorb a large amount of rainfall in a short period of time?

 

[Tim Hall]

I had similar thoughts, both about bailing and the run off. I think the Sutton By Pass at that point has to much slope along the line of the road, compared to the camber. And as the drains seemed to be the "tucked into the kerb" type, the water goes wooshing past rather than into the drain. If the drains were let into the gutter I think they'd catch more water. That is the theory that I have and which is mine and what it is.

 

[srw]

It looked to me like a burst water main.

 

[velovoice]

I guess it also depends on where you were going. Most people were happy to go to London Victoria, for which the Super Off Peak Single was £15-90, for most journeys. A handful of journeys seem to cost £29-90 for a Super Off Peak Single, but they're slower, require more changes, and are only five minutes after a cheaper train, so it would be unusual to try and get one of those. There are £27-00 tickets, but they're Anytime Singles, and are valid on exactly the same trains that the Super Off Peak Singles are valid on (at the weekends, anyway).

So I don't quite know what was going on there, unless either the ticket bod didn't know what he was doing, or there's some odd limitation on your Rail Card. As far as I can tell, on a Network Railcard or Network Gold Card, you should have been able to get a ticket for £10-50, that would have been valid on the same trains that we got (ie a Super Off Peak Single).

If I understand this correctly, Chris already holds a travelcard covering part of London? In which case, what he needed was a ticket from Bognor to the boundary of whatever zones his London travelcard covers. The London travelcard may further entitle him to a network railcard type discount.

For instance, I have an Annual Goldcard covering Zones 1-3. So when I'm outside London and want to return to London, I actually only need a ticket running up to the boundary between Zones 3 and4. You'd be surprised how much cheaper that can turn out to be, as against GroupSave to a London terminal e.g. Victoria or even Clapham Junction.

 

[dellzeqq]

I think I can help here. The South Coast Line stations have their own tariffs from time to time - it can be astonishingly cheap to get back from Chichester, and, sometimes they even say 'buy a return, we can do that for a tenner' without so much as a network card. It also depends who you buy the ticket from

 

[dellzeqq]

A men only ride, a first I can recall on a FNRttC, I wonder why that was.

it's the only one that I can remember since User10571, Adam and I rode to Bracklesham Bay (and wished we hadn't - it was the coldest FNRttC ever). The first FNRttC was four men, the second I can't recall, but the third was the ride that the students came on - and from that point on we've been a fairly mixed bunch, although the percentage of women has slipped from 30% in 2009 to about 25% now

 

[dellzeqq]

There was a cold November ride to Brighton with five and later six, as we picked Martin up at The Cowdray on the Balcombe Rd.

that was balmy by comparison. On the Bracklesham Bay expedition Adam's eye froze shut - but, yes, that was an all-male affair, and probably the last one. November 2007?

 

[thom]

With or without the bad weather (which wasn't forecast although surprised nobody...), I think the Bury Hill billing probably put off the sensible particpants in the average FNRTTC demographic.
(Did that avoid coming accross as sexist ?)

 

[User482]

With or without the bad weather (which wasn't forecast although surprised nobody...), I think the Bury Hill billing probably put off the sensible particpants in the average FNRTTC demographic.
(Did that avoid coming accross as sexist ?)

I didn't think Bury Hill was too bad. The appalling road surface was unpleasant, but the climb itself didn't seem all that taxing, and anyone who can make it up Ditchling should manage it with relative ease.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I didn't think Bury Hill was too bad. The appalling road surface was unpleasant, but the climb itself didn't seem all that taxing, and anyone who can make it up Ditchling should manage it with relative ease.

are you fully recovered from your offage?

 

[thom]

I didn't think Bury Hill was too bad. The appalling road surface was unpleasant, but the climb itself didn't seem all that taxing, and anyone who can make it up Ditchling should manage it with relative ease.

Yes I thought that as well, just it had seemed it was being talked up earlier in the thread and I'm not sure it warranted it and might have put some people off. Certainly Ditchling is steeper and I think a similar height gain.

User13710, I guess various people pulled out from the original list, of both sexes and you're right that would not have been because of the Bury Hill prospect.
I dunno how it compares to Wendover Woods but it is true that one would probably want to avoid Bury Hill during the day; it looks like it might get a decent volume of traffic.

 

[srw]

Bury Hill is basically at a constant gradient over its whole length; Wendover has steeper sections and the odd downhill.

Bury Hill has shockingly bad tarmac for most of its length (large lumps of gravel embedded in asphalt); Wendover's tarmac is really good for Buckinghamshire.

Bury Hill is on a national speed limit A-road, but it's very wide and uphill there are two lanes. Wendover is narrow but is a private drive with a 15mph limit.

Wendover has a rather nice cafe at the top. Bury has a field of oil-seed rape and a decent view out over the Arun valley.

Given a choice, I'd go for Wendover!

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Wendover's tarmac is really good for Buckinghamshire.

bursts a stitch laughing

Wendover has a rather nice cafe at the top. Bury has a field of oil-seed rape and a decent view out over the Arun valley.

In case anyone ever goes back in daylight Bury has a splendid cafe just over the top at Whiteways Lodge by the roundabout..... epic cooked breakfasts and the fried egg sarnies are divine.

 

[dellzeqq]

it's changed hands, matey. Prices have gone up and quantities down. But it's still worth a visit when the bikers are there. It's amazing how much bearded sixtyyearold you can get in to leather....