February 7th 2010 – not Woodmansterne again!

Yes, its Woodmansterne Green again. A nice place but we're getting bored of it.

Well, yes, Woodmansterne again and we discussed how we need to do something more than what we're doing at present as it's all getting a bit samey: Woodmansterne Green, basically, is too boring a venue. Yesterday was good fun in Merstham but we need to do more. The problem is multi-faceted: time is a big issue. To do more than we're doing now will take up more time. Then there's the whole issue of doing more off-road riding. Well, yes, we can, but there aren't that many places round here where you can go off-road, bar little bursts of it, ie en route to Westerham, Westerham Woods, Banstead Woods (where many 'quiet coach' people lurk) and odd little footpaths at the road side, like the tiny bits on the way to Woodmansterne Green.

The only way we can really make things 'different' is if we invest more time and get to grips with cycle racks on the back of our cars. I say 'invest more time', to be honest, I don't have more time and nor does anybody else so it's got to be down to using cars or trains to reach new places, like Richmond Park.

Equally, we need to revisit past venues more often: Westerham, the Tatsfield Bus Stop, Dunton Green, Chevening Lake, Knockholt.

Where 'off-roading' is concerned, I figure we're not going to get much joy out of it. Most of our cycling, by virtue of our location in the UK and the world, is, at best, going to be rural roads, like those encountered on the Black Horse ride or en route to Chevening Lake (Pilgrim's Lane, for instance). We have never gone 'off-road' for more than a few yards and on some of those occasions it's been very tough, ie thick mud, getting off and walking the bike and so on.

The only answer I can see is to have one 'different' event every month so that, say, a four-week period might look like this:

Week One: Westerham.

Week Two: Chevening Lake.

Week Three: Tatsfield Bus Stop

Week Four: Richmond Park

and then Week Five Woodmansterne Green.

I say that next week we go to Merstham on Saturday (because the caff's open) and then on Sunday go to Westerham Woods. Thoughts?

Cancelling out the exercise

We'd cycled around 14 miles to Merstham in total and sat down to eat huge sausage sandwiches and, in Jon's case, a full English breakfast. Not sure what the equation is, but I'm beginning to wonder whether we cancelled out all that good exercise by eating all that stodge. Still, we had to cycle home and tomorrow it's back to tea and cereal bars.

Saturday February 6: to the caff at Merstham

Man with a razor likes a shave outside the caff, just one of the many attractions of Merstham near Redhill in Surrey.

It was supposed to be Boxhill today and there was nothing to stop us: the weather was fine, a little nippy but just about right and, well, we didn't go. I think it's just that we all know it's going to take up most of the morning and that we all have other things to do. I for one have a lot of boring jobs around the house: getting rid of the downstairs cloakroom door, which currently rests against the wall. But it's not that simple – nothing ever is; the door is too big to fit in the car so it's got to be sawn in two before being taken to the dump and boy do I hate the dump! It's full of unwashed, slightly overweight women in grey tracksuit bottoms and Ugg boots throwing away bits of Formica. Horrible.

Anyway, where was I? Merstham. It's seven miles from Woodmansterne Green and it provided us with a decent 'halfway house' sort of ride: we couldn't be arsed with Boxhill and as for Redhill, well, it's just a dreary old place. At least Merstham has a kind of village atmosphere – a pub, a caff (two caffs if you include the Quality Café down near the railway station), and let's not forget the man with a radio who was standing outside Hunger's End (our chosen caff) in the High Street shaving his face with an electric razor while listening to the radio.

We reached Merstham at around 0850hrs, ten minutes before Hunger's End was due to open. It's a great caff, one of those places with uncharacteristic furniture, in this case a couple of sofas mixed in with the pine tables and chairs. I'd been there before because a couple of doors down is an amazing music shop where I've sat and messed around with the bass guitars, but that's another story.

Hunger's End serves typical caff fayre and Jon settled for a full English breakfast. Andy and I had sausage sandwiches and we all had mugs of tea. We sat there, right on the A23 (which doubles as Merstham's High Street) and watched the Lycra-clad cyclists race by; where they were going was anybody's guess, but let's not talk about them, this is, after all, NoVisibleLycra and we ride heavy inappropriate mountain bikes and eat sausages, we don't care about 'precious grams'.

So we sat there and chewed the fat, talking about nothing in particular while watching the strange guy shave, something he kept up for the entire time we were there – talk about a close shave. Soon it was time to cycle home again. It was a good 30-miler and a great destination for a Saturday. I think we were all glad to be in a caff and not standing around on Woodmansterne Green drinking tea from my Thermos.

Another interesting cycling blog...

Check out http://tca2006.blogspot.com

They're up the road in Hampshire. Well, I say 'up the road', it's a good car journey away, but they're nearer than our friends across the water.

Check out the human bobsleigh!!!!

It's definitely worth checking out the video clip on the OneGhostIndustries blogsite listed below. Just scroll down a tiny bit and you'll see the clip on the right hand side of the page. Click the clip and enjoy the ride. 

But just in case you can't be arsed to scroll down, click here instead.

Distance to Redhill from Woodmansterne Green

Well, I thought I was going to win the bet and I almost did, to be fair. The distance from Woodmansterne Green to Redhill is 8.9 miles. It's 7 miles to Merstham.

So, the distances are as follows:-

Woodmansterne Green to Boxhill = 11.4 miles.

Woodmansterne Green to Redhill = 8.9 miles.

Click on the destination names to find out more about them.

Some other cycling blogs to check out

Gravelo knows the true meaning of extreme cold weather: check out the snow in the top pic; that must be the man himself (on New Year's Eve) and look at that, he has the exact same Thermos flask as we do – great minds obviously think alike. Click link below to read more about Gravelo.

Pressing the 'Next Blog' link at the top of this blog can unearth some interesting sites like these:-

http://mountainbikeadventures.blogspot.com

http://planetary-gears.blogspot.com

http://brendansbikeblog.blogspot.com

http://beatbikeblog.blogspot.com

http://gravelo.blogspot.com

http://oneghostindustries.blogspot.com

http://allbikesrcool.blogspot.com

31 Jan 2010: Woodmansterne Green in the cold

Top shot of Andy and Jon on the Green – we found somewhere different as all our pix were looking a bit samey – and the second shot is a self portrait of yours truly wearing the terrorist balaclava.

Yes, I know, we went to Woodmansterne Green again, but to be fair, it was really cold. So cold that I wore my balaclava, only to discover that it wasn't that cold and then to realise that it was that cold and the reason I felt warm was because I was wearing the balaclava.

At the green and the conversation turned to modern art. Andy said that anything called an 'installation' was not art. He was referring to the artist who likes to throw things away, crush his personal belongings, that sort of thing.

We chatted about a lot of other things too, but putting them into print would be a bridge too far. Suffice it to say that we had a good laugh even if it was cold. Alright, we were talking about people that turn up at A&E with strange objects inserted in strange places, but that's it, other than to say that if we were that way inclined – and we're not, I hasten to add – we'd have to leave the country, if anything appeared in the local press, and live the life of a hermit, in exile and in shame. The humiliation!

Woodmansterne to Boxhill distance in miles

It's official. The distance from Woodmansterne Green to Boxhill is 11.4 miles.

30 Jan 2010: Frost or snow? Either way, it's white and cold...

No cycling and a Full English Breakfast instead. Now that can't be good for you.

A friend of mine came off his bike in the wintry weather earlier this month and, sadly, broke his arm. He's on the road to recovery but is having difficulty sleeping at night and might have to undergo another operation – here's hoping he doesn't have to. So, when I awoke late this morning and found what looked like a covering of snow on the ground I decided not to go cycling.

I've just heard the weather man on the television talk about widespread frost, so perhaps it's not snow, but either way I feel justified, if not a little disappointed, in not going.

Oversleeping was the main problem and that had a lot to do with not being able to get to sleep until around 1am. When I eventually did sleep, of course, I slept like a log. Why? Because of a large Whisky Mac, that's why. It was 8am when I awoke, then I saw the covering of frost or snow on the ground.

My phone battery was flat so I never heard Bon call; he HAS gone cycling and, as I write this, is probably at Woodmansterne Green. Yes, I do feel a little ashamed at my wimpiness and even now I'm thinking: go on, get dressed, get out there, but I'd rather eat sausages for breakfast.