Diary update for weeks 16 &17

The last two weeks have been extremely busy weeks on many fronts.

On 3rd May e, Simon and I set off for another tour starting at Guildford. We left at 7am, e had programmed a route into the Garmin to get us down to Brighton. The route was pretty flat and we made excellent progress. Then we came to "Devils Dyke" which is not a side show in Amsterdam but a pretty big hill. This was a good challenge for us all and when we got to the top I saw a "white bike" for the first time. These are an excellent idea to indicate to all the road users that this is where cyclist has died!!!

With this poignant reminder of our mortality we carried on to Brighton.
Once we got to the coast we stopped off at a local café for a quick cup of tea and a wee stop, this then turned into a buttey stop. Then is was back on the bikes and following the coastal road until we got to Portsmouth. With the wind to our backs we made go progress, unfortunately due to time pressure Simon had to leave us and head back to Guildford. However e and I continued on and before long we were heading back down the A31 and home. As always the part of the A31 south of Farnham was a joy to ride on, and yet to the north of Farnham it was the usual nightmare.

Still we got back to Guildford and when I got home I had completed 158 miles - by far my longest ride, and I felt good afterwards.

Sunday was a rest day and then on Monday was the day of the Send May Fair. The weather was exactly what the wife had ordered warm and bright sunshine. I got down to start building the stall at 9am. Before long the gazzebo up and we started to lay out the tables. We were so lucky the pet food guys next to us lent us a table (we had managed to obtain so many prizes and cakes we could not fit them all on our tables!).
E and I started riding on our turbo trainers and kept going for the whole 4 hours and managed to attract some customers. However, I think the cakes and the prizes attracted them more!!
It was a great success, with us raising ovr £300 on the day. So a big thank you goes out to all our supporters and ofcourse the customers who spent their money (and a special tanks to my wife who did so much to ensure it was a success)

After Bank Holiday Monday life got very busy and so the first time I managed to get out on the bike was Saturday morning. So I was up at 6am and got to Guildford for 7am, then it was off down the A31 for e's new route. It was pretty flat and e set a really good pace. The route was excellent ending up on the A283., before going back to Guildford on the A3100. I got back home at 10.45 after completing just under 70 miles, allowing me to have a great day with the rest of the family.

Sunday the kids when swimming in the morning and as my wife is so lovely she let me go out for a bike ride in the afternoon. As we had not done any hills on Saturday I decided to do my "6 hill challenge". Up Ranmore the steep route, down Ranmore the hairpin route. Then up Box Hill, where I was realy pleased as I managed to really push myself. From the second hair pin onwards I stayed out of the saddle until the top of the hill. Then is was down off the hill and back round to the base. Then back up Ranmore's hair pin route and then back down Ranmore into the centre of Dorking. Remembering that there could be a queue of cars going into the household waste centre I made sure I did not go too fast. Luckily there was no queue to no problems. So I went through Dorking and then up Leigh Hill, once on the otherside I headed for Ewhurst. Once I got to the roundabout at the edge of Ewhurst with the pub I turned around and headed back to Legh Hill, once over the top it was back up Ranmore and then back to the A246.
I got back in just over 4 hours with no stops (I ate one of my "Power bars" on the bike for the first time with no problems), so all in all a great weekend.