With the weather looking promising for a Sunday morning ride, 11 riders turned up for the Bird Hills group ride. Danuta was a little frustrated as she was refused a ride on a 25tt round the Drift Road course.   This was compounded by Saturday’s race on H10/181 being cancelled due to poor weather.   (I got hailed on for the 3^rd time on that course).   To make up for this, Danuta unusually suggested we should take the uphill route to Stoke Row past a radar dish, so with no objections and myself confirming I knew the road in question we set off.

The route to Henley was a little different to normal as we headed cross country via Knowl Hill and Warren row.  To the top of Remenham Hill the group stayed pretty well formed with controlled riding and two abreast.  I took the lead down the hill but was rapidly overtaken by Joe looking very professional sitting on the cross bar and his chin on the handle bars.  I got to 45mph but sure he must have been closer or over 50mph.  Later he informed me this was a more stable way to descend / corner due to a lower centre of gravity.  That might be true, but I have little interest in find out.  Would anyone else like to comment?

We left Henley heading toward Reading, with a right at the mini roundabout towards Harpsden and on to Sonning Common.  Leaving the Henley Road, Colin shot off the front along Harpsden Way and took the sprint to the top of the rise that only he knew was a sprint point.  With Colin back on the group, Stuart and I took to the front.  The result of this was a gradual increase in pace as the road continued to climb.  At some point well before Devils Hill a call came to back off a little.  The two leaders duly took note for about 30sec before again lifting the pace.  I was keen for a race to the top and felt Stuart was as well.  As we approached the steep section myself and Stuart where riding around 10m TT effort.  Somewhere at this point Stuart dropped from my side to start following, so that was my signal for the final attack and went on to take a fairly easy win.  Talking with Stuart, he didn’t know the road as well, so this gave me the advantage.

From my point of view the continued climb to Stoke Row was fairly uneventfully with myself, Rob and Colin all sharing the pace setting.  Seeing Simon riding you won’t know he was recovering from heart problems last Autumn as he’s only a few yards behind at the top of the climbs.  The group then headed to Nufield and the junction with the A4130.  A little indecision set in here as to the route to follow.  This was resolved by 3 saying they were heading back, so we all followed onto the top of Pishill.   Somewhere on route Danuta got a puncture.   Luckily a charity ride was going along the same road so watching other riders past the time. 

At the top of Pishill we headed to Stokenchurch where again Colin broke away to claim the unknown sprint for a 2^nd time.  From Stokenchurch we headed down the A40 to West Wycombe instead of the usual route via Lane End.  This section of the ride was done with an average speed over 30mph with Simon leading for much of the way.  At this time I was doing over my 10tt power attempting to keep with the leaders and I don’t understand how Simon rides harder downhill than uphill.

From the A40 entering High Wycombe we took a right and headed towards Sands then up Horns Lane towards Booker.  I think this was the 1^st time most of the group went up that hill which wasn’t as steep as I expected.  After a short re-grouping and a discussion about poor road surface at the bottom of the Marlow Road, we headed off for another fast downhill ride.  Simon again took to the front.  Marlow must have been a bit of a quandary for both Sam and Danuta as both needed to collect cars from the golf club so couldn’t take a short cut home.

From Marlow we deposited Simon in Bourne End and headed back to the golf club via Bray and Holyport.  As we turned into the golf club from the Fifield direction we past Mike going in the opposite direction who had left the group claiming to know a short cut back.

Colin’s Strava upload at http://app.strava.com/activities/53750123 shows the complete ride today was 55miles with a speed of 19.2mph.