Thames Valley Cycle Tour 82km

A nice way to get weary

Overnight frost was being cleared by bright sunshine as I headed off for my first ride with the CTC. I joined recently to get more access to info on Touring from their website. The local section, CTC South Bucks, wrote and invited me out for a ride. The morning meet was at Bourne End Garden Centre. Doesn’t sound great but it has a really nice cafe hidden inside. Just £1.50 for a mug of coffee with unlimited refills. Plenty of tasty looking cakes and sponges to choose from. It's a a favourite meeting point and I can see why. The cycling group that assembled was friendly and there was a bit of banter about the leader being obsessed with hill-climbing and that it could be tough - but they would wait for me!

So I set off, in a group of about fifteen, with some trepidation up Harvest Hill towards Burnham Beeches. From there the route took us past Cliveden to Taplow, along the Jubilee River to Windsor and then across the Great Park to Ascot Racecourse. Windsor Great Park was beautiful in the Autumn sunshine with the leaves just starting to turn, the lush green grass and no traffic.The Racecourse was about half-way, around 40km, and time to start heading back. We headed for another Garden Centre near Winkfield for lunch. I was starving as usual. After our feeding stop we continued on the back-roads to Binfield, through the ‘Walthams’ to Pinkneys Green, Cookham Dean and back to Marlow. 

Have to say it was good fun, riding in a pack is much easier than solo and there’s probably safety in numbers on the few busy sections. Good job I've done plenty of cycling recently, although there was the option to turn back at any time. No worries with the hills, maybe next time.