For once, a lovely sunny summer morning greeted those who made it to the Square for the 8:30 start. I had planned a slightly hillier than normal route to coffee in order to make use of the extra time, so one rider decided to make his own way to elevenses. This left 12 to make their way to Over and up the cycle way to Highnam. Turning off the main Newent road to Tibberton, we proceeded through Kent’s Green and up the hill to descend and climb again to Clifford’s Mesne, then regrouped briefly before the steeper section and the rough descent to Aston Ingham that follows; pre-warned, all made it safely to the bottom of the lane. This was followed by the drag up to the Penny Farthing and then on to Lea where we crossed the A40 and headed towards East Dean and the climb out to pass Euroclydon House at the top. This climb is now much improved with a lovely smooth road surface – and today was even more pleasant due to there being little motor traffic for a change. We were making good time even with the several cheeky little hills we’d climbed, and with the few stops we’d had to regroup, as I was mindful as ever not to lose anyone, helped enormously by the Captain bringing up the rear. Descending to Nailbridge and Steam Mills, we turned off to take the lower road around Cinderford via the industrial estate where an errant motorist attempted an ill-advised overtake, coming extremely close to some of the riders and causing some colourful language to be heard… fortunately unscathed we continued to cross the Speech House road and cut through the no-through road at Ruspidge to rejoin the main road to Soudley. This descends quite a bit and has some really bad surfaces and holes, and seemed to have more traffic than we’d seen all morning, but all made it down OK to reach the Heritage Centre rather early, at 10:31, with 23.5 miles covered from the Square. Fortunately an early stop was good as lots more cyclists arrived just before eleven…
TB
Five opted for the lunch appointment at The Red Hart, Blaisdon. Taking advantage of a nice day they set off down the valley from Soudeley – a quite superb amount of scenery presented itself, including a view over to the Cotswold edge with the Tindale Monument just visible. Not all downhill, but the final swoop into Blakeney was taken at speed. A short element of the A48 and back onto little lanes to Awre, via a level crossing of the railway. At the village we observed numerous Mares Tails high in the sky – our learned member advised this foretold of wet and stormy weather to come in the next day or so. But not today!
Onwards and back to the A48 for a dash to Newnham-on-Severn. Here MG took the easier option to regroup at the lunch venue; the others enjoyed the long and not so gentle climb to Littledean: but the views across to Arlingham were splendid. From here it was well-travelled lanes to Flaxley Abbey, pausing to re-fill bidons at the recently repaired spring: delicious. As were the offerings at the pub, rather quiet for a Sunday lunchtime. Aside from several sightings of buzzards the ride home was uneventful. Around 57 miles all told for the lunch crew.
TW