With an early start at 8:30 there were not many members at the Square as departure time approached, but a few more appeared on the cusp and made it a round dozen. The day was cloudy, as forecast, and a little chilly but it stayed dry with a slight wind from the east. Heading out along Painswick Road, the lanes towards Portway were taken but we actually diverted off along the Stanway to take in Nut Hill instead – just teasing! The usual route along Sanatorium Road to Birdlip was taken, and the ride leader was very much enjoying his new, much faster rolling, tyres. From Brimpsfield it was down and up to High Cross, enjoying the extensive display of primroses along the way just after crossing beneath the A417 (where Ali G turned back, having another engagement). Staying on the ridge road all the way to Woodmancote we got a little spread out but with help from the Captain no stragglers were lost. From Woodmancote we took the Bagendon road but then instead turned left to descend into the Churn valley at North Cerney, with a great view of the church as the road curved around it towards the bottom of the descent. It was then straight back up and climb out of the valley, heading east-north-east to Calmsden then north to Chedworth, where we dropped towards the village and turned right through Lower Chedworth. At some point the President remarked that we would likely do 2000 feet of climbing before coffee, and the leader was getting concerned that we would be rather late to elevenses. However everyone seemed to cope well with the steep section that signalled the start of the climb of Henson;s Hill, which was followed by a fast but annoyingly badly surfaced descent to a T junction – fortunately there were no accidents or equipment failures over the broken road surface. At this point the ride leader was becoming relieved that we were in fact not likely to be very late to coffee, and so it transpired. Once we had taken the obligatory hill towards Yanworth – no thanks to Stowell Park Estate for not letting cyclists use the flat private hard track to avoid the hill. However the views along the road from Yanworth before the final down and up were very fine, and we arrived at the café at 11:04.
717m elevation gained over 44km.