John & Audrey's Cotswolds Ride - Sunday 25th August

[John Tipper]

Our ride to the Cotswolds is fast approaching so our apologies for this relatively late announcement. We always recce our routes before hand but this year we discovered yet another another road closure. However, the route has been amended; Excel and .gpx files are now available.

As usual we’ll run two groups; John will lead the Full members and Audrey will lead Full Members and Associates. Our route from Birchanger to Stow and back, not including your ride to and from home, is 225 miles and includes some demanding roads. Please be realistic, ensure you are comfortable with this mileage before joining us.

We’ll meet at Birchanger Services, Jcn. M11 / A120 (by Starbucks) with full tanks in time for a 9 am briefing.

Our first ‘coffee’ stop will be at Buckingham Garden Centre, 63 miles from the start. Lunch is at 125 miles at the Cotswold Café on the A424, Stow to Broadway. For those who’d like to consider a shorter route, you could return home from Buckingham by following our return route that passes the Buckingham Garden Centre reducing your mileage to 126.

If you'd like copies of the route, .gpx and .xlsx (Excel) please email me at anthony@reveillerrides.co.uk and I'll send them to you.

We can’t think of a better way to spend a sunny Sunday but bring the wet suit just in case!

John and Audrey

[neilb]

An absolutely superb day’s riding......even the heat couldn’t dampen the spirits! Thanks, John, for once again organising this and to Steve for keeping the rear in order. Thoroughly enjoyed it

[John Tipper]

Our sincere thanks to all who joined us on what turned out to be a fabulous day. Audrey and I have ridden this route many times but road works and road closures tested our patience! Revised route (via Wing) finally sorted but a last check ride by Audrey revealed a new closure on the A507 at Baldock. On Saturday, we both went back to checkout deviations; through Baldock, far too technical for a large group and few places to leave markers. Simple option via the A1(M). Not perfect but selected and test ridden (twice), all sorted or so we thought. We decided to have a coffee in Baldock TC only to find the closure now open. Stress level 9!!! However, everything worked like clockwork on the day. 33 degrees recorded, arrived at Buckingham in record time, Audrey arriving just 15 minutes after me. Charlbury loop with very little traffic was enjoyed by all. Our route was 230 miles but add the distance from home and back, many will have ridden circa 300 miles. Well done to you all.

Our sincere thanks to everyone who joined us. I counted 25 but a couple more arrived a little late. My thanks to Stephen Green, my sweeper and Doug for sweeping for Audrey. We only received 5 requests for .gpx routes so the majority were happy to trust our marking and sweeping. We hope we didn't let you down.

John and Audrey

[chris_johnson]

I made it 26 people, 234 miles and 33.5C, but within the limits of experimental error the same as John's numbers! It certainly was a brilliant day and all the meticulous route research seemed to pay off since there seemed no sign of anything going wrong. The cafe was good. Many thanks to John, Audrey and the back markers. Pictures have been posted.

Regards
Chris J.