Bob McLeod reports seeing a couple of cycling animals on the Danebury yesterday. He suspects they escaped from the Alresford Watercress event!
Louise Gagnon writes…. 
Elstead Audax 100 organisers took an exceedingly dim view over rumours of illegal drug usage. Here Peter Hackman is pictured after one successful intervention. Thanks Peter for keeping this great annual event drugs-free! [ All joking aside, thanks to Nick Davison, Marion Davison, and Peter Hackman for organising such a wonderful event. The route was beautifully scenic, mostly traffic-free and also somewhat pothole-free as we rode mostly in Hampshire. As always the presence of other riders coming from far and wide made the real difference. A gorgeous sunny day and 23 C really boosted our spirits as well. Marion, thanks for the refreshments. If I were you I’d get Peter to assist with dishes; he seems so highly capable.
This was the ride done by the Intermediates ‘A’ group, for want of a better description; group participants were: Louise Gagnon, Alex Nash, Neil Eason, John Child, Keith Ricketts (ride leader), Phil Gasson – one of our newest riders – welcome Phil! – Laurie Mutch and your scribe Mark Waters.
An improving weather picture, forecast earlier in the week, for once met expectations: so we, who were lucky enough to be free to come out and ride today, were gifted a most glorious day – and make the most of it we did!
Chobham was the starting point and we were heading north to Buckinghamshire and Burnham Beeches, via Windsor, Eton, Datchet and Dorney, where we had elevenses at Bressingham Garden Centre. You can find details of the ride here: http://www.strava.com/activities/141045372
Lunch was taken at the White Horse in Hedgerley, just north of Farnham Common. Reasonably priced and nicely presented, with the added bonus of beer straight from the barrel. I enjoyed a pint of IPA from a local Marlow brewery. We even enjoyed the extra bonus of an ice cream on the return trip through Windsor.
The ride was a pleasant 87kms long, with not much wind. Most of the ride was spent warning our fellow riders of imminent deadly potholes in their path and, as is usual in this direction, the roads weren’t quiet.
I shot quite a few photos, including a number of shots of people. I also played around with editing tools to give some of the shots an arty look – principally because the shots weren’t particularly exciting – possibly as a consequence of the scenery not being overly exciting, but a photographer shouldn’t blame his tools!
Some shots taken along the way….
And now for some group shots!
And finally a couple of ‘arty’ shots
On Tuesday we did a ride from Lake Vyrnwy …
… visiting Pistyll Rhaeadr.
Then on Wednesday we explored the twisty, hilly lanes heading for Caersws.
We’ve been quite lucky with the weather so far.
On Saturday we cycled along the Montgomeryshire Canal and visited both Welshpool and Newtown.
Sunday was a grey day with quite a few showers around; not good for photographs. We visited Montgomery with its castle, the town of Bishop’s Castle, and cycled to the top of the road that crosses the Stiperstones ridge, at which point we saw a large grey cloud heading our way and ran for home. That was the one shower that got us, and we only had our waterproofs on for half an hour.
On Monday we rode to Llanfair Caereinion and then meandered around the hills between Welshpool and Lake Vyrnwy.
