Bikeabilityman's report has enough touchpoints with my own recollection of the ride that I suspect it may well have been his wheel I sucked most of the way to Sherborne. Thanks for that, Bikeabilityman!
I've been out of this game enough that the only person I recognised at the start was the org, who was gently teasing me about an incident a good ten years ago in which a driver going the other way fell asleep at the wheel and had a good go at curtailing my riding career. I just had time to find the facilities and check that there was a cashpoint for a finish receipt before it was time to head out.
It was an unusual and welcome experience to depart with the main group. Usually I'm still getting ready when they go but a nice group was ver welcome into the headwind, albeit with some "little moments" as folks lost concentration. It halved at Aylesbury after some impromptu cyclo-cross to save about 100m of riding, and was no more (that I know of) after Pangbourne.
The Garden Cafe in Pangbourne, on the left before the give-way, gets top marks for quick and friendly, so does the Warehouse Cafe in Fisherton Street Salisbury. That was where I lost touch with whom I presume was BaM, as my dislike of Whitherspoons overcame me.
I saw BaM and friend a few more times, but we were out of sync an never really linked up again. In any case he is far too strong for me on the hills, where wheelsucking doesn't help. Also saw Oxford Ron and mates a few times but there was clearly no chance of my keeping up with them either. The next time I saw them, they were heading north out of Exeter as I rolled in.
After Sherborne, the hills and then sleepiness started really to slow me down and by Honiton I was in a bit of a state. I'd overestimated the night-time temperature and I was frozen to the bone when I stopped for a coffee from a trailer in the high street. It didn't really warm me up but it did wake me up enough for the ride into Exeter. I spent far too long consuming the most expensive coke and crisps on the planet and the last portion of maccaroni cheese so that when I headed out to find my sleep stop, I was way behind schedule.
I checked in anyway for a shower and bit of kip. I'm really glad I did, even though I messed up setting the alarm and overslept, so that I didn't leave there till a little after six. After that, it was a bit of slo-mo TT to get back on time before Wells. I passed one rider and he was the last Awk I saw all day. I saw plenty of roadies out though and lots of leisure cyclists enjoying the Somerset lanes.
Wells was a delight. I'd clawed back about half an hour, and spent it on the best bacon and scrambled eggs I've ever tasted, at Andres Cafe, beside St Cuthbert's church. Sitting in the sun outside, and catching up on my Turkish practice, a lady passing by thought my breakfast was talking to me. Unusual that, Turkish-speaking bacon.
From there on was just a long solo slog, catching up a bit of time then losing it again at a control. The back started to ache, the knees too. Ibuprofen sorted that, but I'd be absolutely flying along and look at the computer to find I was doing 17kph.
Bath would be beautiful if it weren't for the perma-traffic jam. Burford has gone the same way.
After Burford I amused myself with some applied psychology. If the first car in a group leaves a decent gap, I give them a big wave and turn to smile and mouth "thank-you". After that, as often as not, the next one will leave an even bigger gap, and so on down the line. Of course it may have been the mad expression that did it, rather than the cheery wave.
Brackley was interesting on a Sunday evening. At least I amused them, but I lost more time being served by Hazel and her Czech friend at the Crown Hotel. You know that feeling when you've ordered something simple, and you realise this is all going to take so much longer than you've got? So then it was a straightforward TT all the way to Leighton Buzzard, where I'm delighted to notice that one sees the occasional buzzard again.
I wouldn't necessarily have chosen to ride the A421 out of Buckingham at dusk, and I overshot the turn off to L-B so that I had to walk back up 100m of dual carriageway to take the other road in.
When I got the the station I found the cashpoint wouldn't give receipts so as it was knocking on the time-limit, Ian is now in possession of perhaps the worst selfie since the invention of instagram.
But I made it. By about 3 minutes.
Thanks Ian
PS - I didn't realise we would be going down that exact stretch of road. I looked, and the hedge has grown back where she went through it.