Stroud Road provides a fast, and traffic-light free route out of Gloucester, and is reasonably quiet on a Sunday morning, which allowed the group to form up, and find a tempo to work at. This lasted until Frocester Hill, where the group split, with our Welsh mountain goat, G, flying up the hill.
A re-group at the top, and then good teamwork into the wind around Kingscote, led us to the plunge into Wotton. After that, only the sharp climb of Charfield Hill, and intricate navigation within the garden centre slowed our progress to coffee, which was excellent.
The way back, being flat with a tail wind, allowed the pace to increase, and we were in Berkeley before we had really got going from coffee. The approach to Claypits lights may not be much of a hill, but the pace set by “The Machine” proved brutal, and gradually each of us was spat out of the back, as we had spent too long “in the red”. We again regrouped and enjoyed a pleasant ride through Saul back to Stonebench.
58 miles, 2,800′ ascent @16.1mph