South West London Women CC Group**

[vickster]

Cool stuff, I do have to work, could do the afternoon too

 

[jefmcg]

I'm still holding out for a name involving "Cakester" And not "Kingston", as none of us (so far) is from Kingston.

Have a lovely ride tomorrow, and don't forget our pootling ethos

From Kingston to Cake:
http://app.strava.com/rides/22002699

and from Cake to Specialized store

http://app.strava.com/rides/22017073

So what do you say: set pootling records by pootling to Brighton?

 

[dellzeqq]

if memory serves the Kingston Phoenix does Saturday morning rides which are women led. I think it starts at Horton Park in Epsom

 

[vickster]

We are now planning a trundle to Brighton on the 6 Oct weather permitting - 8am at Starbucks, Raynes Park

Likely to be an all day pootle with train back

 

[jefmcg]

And there will be a convoy (possibly of one) leaving Twickenham about 7.15 passing through Kingston or Richmond Park.

 

[vickster]

And I'll be coming from Sutton

 

[jefmcg]

Final call for elongated pootle on Saturday (weather permitting). We are starting in Epsom, heading down through Reigate for a quick breakfast stop, a cake break in Crawley, a lunch/flapjack break roughly halfway between Crawley and Brighton (suggestions for a suitable stop welcome) and then beer and fish&chips on Brighton Beach.

We'll be slow - probably 10-12 mph - with walking on hills permitted. And plenty of breaks, as you can see. We are taking the easy way, avoiding Turner's Hill and Ditchling (saving them for next time). So, if you are a woman in SW London, can confidently ride 20 miles and want to do something stupid on Saturday (weather permitting - these guys a wusses!) then drop a personal message to me, Vickster or AnythingButVanilla.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=5688324

 

[Pale Rider]

Might be worth looking into forming your own group on the Breeze network:

http://www.goskyride.com/Breeze/Index

 

[ttcycle]

I may be up for this when I return to London. Will keep an eye on the thread

 

[wanda2010]

I'm already getting soaked with The Fridays tomorrow night but I'll keep an eye on the thread for any future rides.

 

[vickster]

No other loons wanting to ride then?

Not sure when the next 'big' ride will be

 

[mark st1]

Kingston Cake Queens?

Suffra..jets

 

[vickster]

Well, we all made it to Brighton in one piece

Thankfully, the vile weather of the night before had cleared (see the Fnrttc coast thread) and we met at Epsom station at 8ish as planned, quick comfort break at Maccy D’s...and headed up towards the Downs...first hill...then through Tadworth, and the next hills (being passed by a couple of friendly ‘morning’ roadie-whippets)
...up and down the A217 to the M25 Reigate junction (more hills, and a few close passes ugh)...you may have gathered that we ladies living in SW London don’t see hills very often

The next hill we encountered was into Reigate, but this time downhill, much more fun although it was still wet and quite a few cars following (Anythingbutvanilla got to ~36mph, I much more a scaredy cat about 25mph). First stop of the day in Reigate for coffee and bagels

Back on the road, out of Reigate (yay another hill) and we found Lonesome Lane, a lovely road for riding, few cars, sun shining.

Next comfort break in Horley and onwards to Crawley.

Another hill conquered, we found our way onto the NCN 20 which was our planned route to Brighton (no thanks to some joker who had turned the sign round )...onwards

Due to to some roadworks on the A23, we were diverted through a wooded bit down three lots of steps (I am indebted to jefmcg for lugging my bike down the steps after the tedious tendon in my elbow chucked an extremely painful paddy)...and thanks to man with dog pointing us in the direction of Brighton!

On we went, nice and flat to Sayers Common where we had a break with a drink at the pub and back on the road/path pretty much alongside the A23...although the road was flat, cycle path was *ahem* undulating and now tiring, we did have a little walk up one particularly steep bit

Now for the final straight run into Brighton (flat if not a little downhill, weeeeee) and we arrived at around 3.45pm

Found our way to the Pavillion

and then down to the beach

and to the Madeira Cafe for tea, chips and burger!

Time to head to the station (sorry to the others for getting carried away riding down the seafront and ABV having to chase after me before I got to Worthing ), caught the train and we said our farewells at Clapham Jn

All in all, it took us around 7 hours to get to Brighton, with a rolling time of around 4h40 – a fantastic ~50 mile Saturday pootle...

I’ll let the others fill in any gaps and jefmcg upload the Strava file / some more photos

Cheers both for a lovely day and to jefmcg for superlative route planning

 

[BigonaBianchi]

i am a woman

 

[jefmcg]

Hmm, not much in my photo collection from Saturday.

Still, here's a poor lit picture of our bikes (do you detect a theme?)