There was a good turnout of 19 members and guests at Bird Hills Golf Club on Sunday for our seventh annual 50 mile Reliability Ride on a circular route to the south of Maidenhead.  This included regulars from the two Sunday club runs as well as some less familiar faces.  Before we started there was a perfect demonstration of how to fall off when wearing new cleats by one member in the car park, but as far as I knew this proved to be the day’s only mishap.  At the designated start time of 8:45 a group of faster riders set off followed not long after by the rest of us.

After only 4 miles I encountered John at Waltham St. Lawrence who had unfortunately suffered a flat so I stopped to assist while the others went on.  As often happens, the first replacement tube didn’t work, but with the help of one of mine, we soon got going.  As far as I know, this was the day’s only mechanical.  It took some time before John and I caught up with anyone else, but we eventually saw Sarah and Harj 20 miles into the route near Bramshill.  Travelling north east on this section seemed to be particularly hard work into the headwind for much of the time, particularly on the straight sections.  At Bracknell, Harj who was doing well on his first ride of this distance, headed north to take a short cut back to the golf club while Sarah, John and I did the rest of the route through Ascot and Windsor Great Park.

Looking at Strava records shows that Bird Hills regulars Andrew, Mike, Mark, Colin and Rob were among the first group back at 11:35 and a medium group with Nigel, Kevin and Steve also got back in time for a coffee at about 12:00.  John, Sarah and I completed the field at 12:30 not long behind Denis and Pedro.  I hope everyone enjoyed a good early season work out in the wind. 

For the last 4 years we have arranged a group outing to Box Hill in the summer.  One thought, would members prefer a ride to Leith Hill instead this year for a change?