Longer ride report before I forget it all:
Nightmare getting to Oxford due to delayed trains and sitting around at D*dc*t in the cold for half an hour due to a missed connection. Not a great start, but Oxford station (a great meeting place even if I say so myself) was warm, everyone who said they'd be there turned up and so did Fab Foodie, whom I took a while to recognise without his helmet!
We got out of Oxford very quickly, Paul apparently on some sort of mission to get to London before dawn. He did complain about not having seen any dreaming spires; maybe I'll tweak the route next time to include a circuit of the city centre first, but dreaming spires == pissed students so it's swings and roundabouts.
The climb out of Horspath didn't split the group much but the descent into Wheatley did - that right turn is sneaky. There follows about ten miles of almost dead-flat lanes with no traffic at all where you can get into some sort of rhythm - in this case, a pretty fast one of 17-18mph. We stopped at one of the usual places (near Worminghall) for a pee and the stars, as usual on a FNRttS, were amazing. Then across the water meadows (lots of cute little hump-backed bridges and the sound of watery stuff) to the A418 and into Thame.
Thame, as usual, was as throbbing as a small town gets at 1.30 on a Saturday, with a very heavy police presence. Cheery waves from a few drunks, no-one passed out on the pavement this time. Back onto the Roman road for Chinnor, and Paul started making like Eddy Merckx again with me trailing behind and mattc and topcat1 further back. You can't get lost in this bit though. Chinnor Hill was as evil as ever, especially with a bottom gear of 52", but I did establish that the creaking I noticed in March last year is merely the saddle and not the frame or BB. A big split opened up here (it's almost exactly the same height and gradient as Ditchling Beacon), Topcat1 missed the big sign for "High Wycombe" and it took a couple of mobile phone calls to retrieve him. Hooting owls in the dark, the Milky Way overhead.
It's almost all downhill from here to London on the new route. Speeding through Bledlow Ridge at about 20mph, a badger made a suicidal break for my front wheel, making everyone jump. Onto uncharted roads, a really steep and twisty descent to West Wycombe in the dark. Then a few miles of the A40 (very quiet) before chucking-out time at High Wycombe. The chavs were friendlier than usual with their catcalls and "whooooooos" out of Corsa back windows. After a seeming eternity we reached Tesco at Loudwater and mattc sat in the hot airflow from the door curtain warming his feet while we ate and drank an audaxers' diet of sausage rolls, Frijj and cheap chocolate
People were coming in very unsuitably dressed and buying crates of beer - and this was 3am!
Out into the (for June) chill and there is another mile or so of A40 with a gentle climb to warm up. Then we turned off to skirt around Beaconsfield, which is a pleasant road but with a giant dip in it which I wasn't anticipating. Into town, past the noisy Royal Mail depot and then into Ledborough Lane and onto the really special part of the ride.
Welders Lane is where the millionaires (including Ozzy Osbourne) live, and we chased a fox cub through the forest between all the electric gates and illuminated keypads. At Chalfont St. Peter there was a circus on the village green. Despite warnings about the deep gravel, Paul still crashed into the hedge on West Hyde Lane
. There's a marvellous view just after you cross the M25; a sort of Rubicon for this ride. Then we went down to the canal, topcat1 and I chased rabbits while Paul and mattc looked at badgers and birds, and we all marvelled at the boiling water and the slalom course by the Coy Carp pub.
Up the hill to Harefield (and the first TfL bus stop sign) and we hung around for a bit to try out the bus shelter and feed leftover sausage rolls to the ducks. A few miles of open countryside again, with a deer trying again to succeed where the killer badger had failed, and we did a quick diversion to check out a roadside shrine to some departed boy racer which chocolatebike and I had noticed last year. Still being immaculately maintained.
Then it was the urban roads of Ruislip, Greenford, Ealing and a HUGE cheap breakfast in Acton.
Afterwards we snuck through a closed road at Holland Park roundabout, where a mini-riot was in progress, and then mattc and I did a lap of Hyde Park with a quick diversion to look at the Albert Hall, which mattc pronounced not as good as in the photos. Then the train home.
Marvellous.
Next one's on 20th August.