First, congratulation to Tim Buttler on a new World Record for the 3 Cities today!
Six of us chose not to race,and instead rode out to Kerne Bridge, on roads whose surfaces were barely condusive to cycling in places, and certainly not racing. The section from Kempley to How Capie could almost have qualified as a succession of sectors in Flanders, and resulted in one puncture stop.
Although the roads were poor, we kept off the Strada Bianchi that the moderate paced group used, but we did visit the Tuscan village of Sienna-on-Wye (aka Hoarwithy). After watching some paddle boarders on the river as we left Hoarwithy, we climbed up to the A49, and then to coffee. Some grumbling that the coffee stop was further into the ride than usual was mitigated by the excellent quality of the cake.
Climbing the biggest hill of the day straight after coffee will never make the ride leader popular, but eventually Star Beach was reached. After that, the climb on to Ruardean was almost trivial.
It was good to ride roads we usually ride in the other direction, which proved a theme of the ride. Excellent ride in excellent weather. 61 miles, 3,800′ ascent @15.0mph.