Just to confirm what the others have said...
Familiar faces at the start (AndyH, Swarm_Catcher, Rich Forrest, MattC, Phil D) and others along the way.
A nice warm start to the ride (yes, WARM) but the headwind on the long first stage eventually found its way through my gloves and shoes. I think this may have been due to running out of calories as I had to stop at 45km for some christmas cake from the rackpack. I'd been hanging on to the back of a MattC-led group until then but, once a slight gap appeared it took too much effort to close the gap in that headwind. I decided to drop to my own pace rather than "blowing up" and wrecking the ride.
In Malmesbury I took the advice from this forum and used "Amanda's Cafe" (which is now called something else). It was superb and I was the only cyclist in there. I got served right away and this meant I made up a lot of time, meeting MattC again on the start of The Whiteway. Once again I was in no shape to keep up and just twiddled the Rohloff over the Cotswolds for the next 50k or so. At least the wind and sun was on my back now.
![](http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u249/freddered/Paris-Brest-Paris/PoorStudent200Jan2011b.jpg?t=1294570734)
After that draining stage I finally got the reward of the descent into Chipping Campden. Last time I rode this we got there in the dark and freezing cold (Keeks trying to fix a p******e with frozen hands) so it was nice to arrive in daylight with time to spare.
Note to Chipping Campden town council - FIX THAT POTHOLE ON THE LONG DESCENT OR SOMEONE WILL GET KILLED
(If anyone arrived late, in the dark, then I really hope they missed that pothole because it's very deep and you are going very quickly at that point. I don't see how you'd stay on if you hit it). Actually there is a lot of tarmac missing on the Cotswold stage. Snow is still lying on the ground where it had previosuly drifted and the roads have obviously had a tough december/january.
Due to a seemingly random serving procedure in the Tea Rooms I managed to close the gap on MattC again (Zoom gave up waiting eventually but I got lucky and had a quick turnaround).
I'd assumed, because of the warm start, that we'd have a warm ride but, as I prepped my bike outside, I started feeling pretty cold (it was 2degC at the finish) forcing me to stop several times on the final stage to add layers, glove-liners and so on.
A big bonus on the final stage was meeting up with LiamFitz, of this parish, and riding together to the finish. The final 30-40km on a winter 200 can really drag, I found them fairly lumpy rather than flat (but I was suffering a loss of power by then I suppose) and it's good to have someone to help pass away those difficult last miles.
Got back to the Park & Ride, loaded the bike into the car and got a receipt for some petrol at the services next door.
All in all a good day out, as good as you can reasonably expect in early January. Warm at the start and dryish roads at the end made it a lot easier than it could have been. Thanks Mr Bew.