What a gorgeous day for a bike ride! 8 of us met at Holyport memorial hall for a trip out to Benson, on a beautifully sunny and warm morning. There were lots of cyclists in the car park getting ready for some sort of road race along the Drift Road - it all looked very professional with motorcycle outriders, lead vehicles etc.

None of that for us, we rolled out at 0845 and met up with Rob as we headed towards Twyford, making us a neat group of 9 - Dave D, Mike, Peter, Les, Gurpal, Simon, John, Rob and me..  I was the only lady again - come on girls, if you are reading this please come along some time, I need some female company. Through Twyford and Sonning, the first rise of the day came up from Caversham towards Gallowstree Common. We had decided to stay together until Benson, but only had to wait at the top for a little while to regroup. It was then a fantastic fun descent to Goring, a right hand turn and to the Waterfront cafe at Benson. It was very busy there, as you would expect on a sunny bank holiday weekend Sunday, but they had a great system going and got through the queue and served us coffee and cake really quickly.

At Benson Gurpal decided to let us go on as he wanted to do some extra miles, so the 8 of us started the slightly hillier route back home. Watlington Hill is a nasty one - split us up a bit with Mike, Peter and Dave setting a good pace and the rest of us trickling in behind - but we all made it and could enjoy the descent (apart from annoying cars!) down Dolsedon Lane. Another rise to Frieth, Mike on the front pulling us along more quickly that I would usually go, and keeping up with them down the hill to Marlow meant I got PR, whilst Dave had a near miss with a car pulling out right in front of him.

Luckily no harm done. The route we were following sent us up Quarry Hill, but I wanted to complete 100km so wanted to go the slightly longer way through Bourne End...for some reason everyone else did the same - lucky for me really as it meant I could continue to draft the fast boys!

Anyway, it really was a lovely ride today - lovely weather, great company and a beautiful route (thanks Rob O - sorry you couldn't come today in the end!) 100km at an average speed of 16.3mph.