Why, what a wonderful wander! Great way to pass a weekend
It could always be a gamble doing a long ride like this on its first running, but overall I thought it a fantastic route. The FAST escape out of London was very appreciated. Lovely riding over the cotswolds as always. We saw a lot of rain "over on the next hill" both days but never got a soaking, just the odd brief shower blown in on us (and plenty of road water in places). The continuous lumpiness through Worcester right to Hay were bit of a surprise (my fault for not reviewing the profile before hand... I rarely do) but this did mean the worst of the headwind I was bracing for never fully materialized for us due to hill shelter.
The ride from Hay to Raglan was perhaps my favourite part. Fantastic taster of riding the welsh roads in quiet dusky landscapes, whetting the appetite and leaving me wanting more Cymru. And then the brutal 10mile into Chepstow making me never want to go to those lands again ;-)
Booking a travelodge bed "just in case" was one of my better ideas, really happy to have got a few good hours shut eye before the ordeal of the second day.
The lumpy start to day 2 certainly made for a tough opener but I actually found the long second stage culminating in that never ending drag into Hindhead was probably a low point for me... probably didn't eat enough through that stage (and was done digesting a wonderful and fast breakfast from Pewsey). Fantastic to see the punch bowl from above .. never done that before, although the descent was not as "tandem exhilarating" as the profile suggests due to being on a shared pathway. By the time we got to Combe Lane I was really relishing the climb, as it's a known-entity and last big goal of the ride... with that out the way it's plain sailing back to HQ.
Great BBQ to finish it all off. Would have stayed around to see more faces, but Thing2 was in a hurry to get home and showered so we could pop out for a cheeky pint, which we managed. A guy in the pub was astonished to hear we walked 35mins to the pub, so I didn't dare mention what else we'd been up to just before that....!
Congrats on a great Kingston Wheelers SR series. So fortunate to have this right on our doorstep.