Four brave ladies arrived in time for a 9am departure from King’s Square, a great turnout considering the awful weather forecast that had been showing for the last few days. Luckily, I think most of the predicted rainfall happened during the night, leaving a clear and sunny morning. On my way into the square I had a close encounter with a squirrel that decided to run out in front of me, seeing my front wheel just in the nick of time it ran back into the hedge.
Our group followed close behind the fast group for the first couple of miles leaving the city centre, as they kept getting held by red lights! They then left us behind for good shortly before a turning onto Frogfurlong lane. We then reached the new stretch of green cycle path and I decided at that point to phone the café at Hayles Fruit Farm to let them know our final numbers. They had been anxious to know this when I first booked as they expected to be busy, it being a Bank Holiday weekend! I told the rest of my group I would catch them up, but this turned out to be a mistake as I found it a tricky task in the end! As it turned out, one of our number had decided to take the advantage of drafting a behind a tandem. This meant the average speed of the three ahead of me was impressively high and even with me racing on some sections to try and catch up, I did not reach them for about 30 minutes.
Just before finding them stopped, I felt a small shower of rain which they did not get at all! We continued to Gotherington and saw some ominous black clouds hanging over our apparent destination, but we weren’t fazed. In fact, our good luck with the weather held as we continued to enjoy the scenic countryside bathed in sunlight. Craving refreshments, we kept up a good pace over the rolling hills to Gretton and beyond. During this section we stopped in front of the Royal Oak at Gretton, to get a group photo in front of the carved tree showing a former King of England attempting to hide! Joining the main road originating from Winchcombe, we dodged the nasty potholes for the last couple of miles and enjoyed a sit down at the café.
All were keen to tackle an ascent of Cleeve Hill southbound, as part of my intended route home. Fuelled by excellent cakes and hot savoury food, all completed the climb with apparent ease! Very pleased to get to the top, we then enjoyed the fantastic descent down into Prestbury. Navigating our way home through Cheltenham, we opted to stay on Shurdington Road as the traffic didn’t seem to be too bad. Thankfully, for the first Ladies ride of 2024, we were blessed with good luck as this proved to be a day where the weather turned out to be a lot better than the forecast!
EB
Approx. 46 miles with 1,800 feet of climbing @ 14.5 mph