If the Dunwich Dynamo didn't give you a touch of the never-agains, here's the Friday Night Ride to the Smoke, "the warm one". These are run at new moons to avoid the FNRttC and also because we usually look at the sky out in the wilds and go "My God! It's full of stars!"
Leave Oxford railway station (warm concourse, toilets, amusing middle-class drunks) and ride to Paolo's Cafe* in Acton for breakfast. A couple of big hills and miles of flat stuff. Water meadows, mists, badger attacks, the spiritual experience of crossing 8 lanes of M25 at dawn and did I mention amusing drunks? Food stop at 24-hr Tesco after about 40 miles (comfy chairs in the cafe area, although you have to eat what you can buy off the shelves), buy one of
these if you want a hot drink, it's ribbed for your pleasure.
Train tickets from London cost about the same as a Ginster's and a bottle of Frijj. Who's in?
*Paul isn't Italian but he's very friendly. New menu with options such as "The Scaffolder's Breakfast", which would slay anyone of a weak constitution.
