By Rob Ingle - regular Green group rider

I’d originally planned the route with a -1 degree in cloud start, so was more than pleased to arrive at the carpark with 2 degrees showing in bright sunshine, with the temperature rising during the ride.

I set a southerly course into the “2mph” southerly wind at the time (which did pickup later) after first heading west to Twyford on trusted open roads (thinking previously that it might have been an icy start).  The Greens were joined by C&T rider Olga who arrived in plenty of time for introductions and for all of us to inspect the rocket ship that she had arrived on; she instantly mixed in well.

I headed out with Peter at the front with Kristy, Olga, Chris, Ben and Stan nicely grouped behind us.  We had only done about 8miles when it become a bit too obvious on my Garmin that I was still suffering from a chest infection so decided I’d kick back and let the young ones take over on the front; apart from a few short stints navigating, everyone took their place on the front and kept the pace going nicely...great stuff.

The route I covered back to the carpark was 48.5mile @15.77mph with 1736feet ascending so I’m thinking everyone else would have come in slightly faster.  Sadly Chris had yet another mechanical on this ride; it may have been a flat battery or something worse with his DI setup, in any case he decided to head back after we had just left Twyford.

The ride then took us straight through Wokingham (of course we had to catch the whatever time to London train at the crossing but that gave Kirsty a chance to make sure she wasn’t going to lose her Garmin + mount further down the road)  and then headed onto the bottom end of Crowthorne high street where we headed down to Yorktown Road and took the right to Yateley where we soon peeled off the main road and continued riding just north of the lakes and coming out in Finchampstead.

A free ride for all then ensued as I told the group this next piece of road down to Eversley Cross should be quick (mostly downhill) which saw me arrive some “10 or so secs later” at the bottom.  We then headed straight over ish through some country roads as we took the southern loop around Yateley and headed back up through Cricket hill which at that point isn’t one!

We then had a wonderful photo opportunity (that no one took) at an old stop (pre-café visits) where we used to refuel and take a 5-10min break – this time in glorious sunshine.  From here it was back to Sandhurst where we turned up onto Rackstraw’s Road.   A couple of hills (at least it registered and switched screens to hill climb on my Garmin on this section where I briefed everyone to hit the down hill into one of the roundabouts fast as the other side went straight back into a climb.   To my surprise…. what a great team…. they had all waited at the roundabout for me, only to see me wave at them as I went across it @ 25+mphbut it didn’t take them all long to hunt me down again as we made the left at the top and headed for Coffee at the Pinewood Café.

The Café was OK but it really is more of food café with a whole bunch of people having breakfast (smelt great), there was a small selection of cakes,  plenty of chocolate and generally inexpensive I would say.   More to the point we were able to sit outside in the sunshine and had another great photo op ☹ and thoroughly enjoyed the break and banter.

From the Café it was straight into the East side of Workingham – a brand-new road and bridge over the railway was a nice change to some of the previous surfaces (Ben dreamt “why can’t all roads be like this”  then up into Binfield and onto Howe Lane where at the end, Peter decided to take the right to Paley Street/Holyport whilst of the rest of us re-joined the Waltham’s via Church Hill.

Stan peeled off at Woodlands whilst the rest of us went down Harvest Hill where Olga, Kirsty and Ben left me at the carpark.  Kirsty had more training to do so was happy to put an extra loop back to Cookham and Olga and Ben looked like they were enjoying it too much, so were happy to take the indirect route back to the river / town.

Thanks all for supporting me on the ride including a special mention to Kirsty and Peter who pulled me back to the group a couple of times, well appreciated; hope the mechanical is sorted Chris.