Not much to report this week....

===

RIDE REPORT
Trailblazing Route 22

For the first time in over 3 years, all 340+ members realised that
cycling into a slight headwind in sub zero temperatures is a bad idea.
Subsequently, there was no one at the library car park at 9:30 so I
went home.

However, for those armchair fans who like to read what we've been up
to, I'll give you a rundown of what we've all missed:

Sustrans is the charity responsible for devising and delivering the
10,000 mile National Cycle Network. It's an ongoing project and now
includes the "Connect 2" routes after they won £50m of National
Lottery money in a tv competition. Their Route 22 goes from London to
Portsmouth and is nearly complete but I've got the original maps and
did a trailblaze ride with Sustrans in 2004 so I have the advantage of
knowing where it goes.

Regular riders will know that Sustrans' routes are "leisure routes",
meandering along tracks and trails as well as quiet roads. NCN 22 is
no exception and starts in Wandsworth on the Wandle Trail, picking
it's way through parks and along riverside paths until it reaches
Carshalton. From here, Sustrans decided to head directly up Park Rd
but it's a relentless climb and robs you of a chance to see the pretty
duck ponds. We know a better route past the Stanley Rd allotments than
evens the climb out to make it more manageable.

We'd have rejoined the Sustrans route on the Telegraph Track, a
concrete bridleway through the black weatherboarded market garden
estate, built by Sutton Council for returning soldiers from WW1 and
turned right onto the Oaks Track, the other concrete bridleway that
makes up this surprisingly rural estate. Morning stop would have been
at historic Oaks Park, the former home of the Earl of Derby which gave
its name to the famous Epsom horse race (he named the Derby after
himself!). Then we would have headed through Banstead to Epsom Downs
and rode over the actual racecourse to Sheep Walk, a tough uphill
bridleway.

The next part is all on roads, includes the long descent on Lodge
Bottom Rd to the bottom of Box Hill and the cycle track alongside the
A24 into Dorking. The section in Dorking is a mess, including several
yards of a one-way street the wrong way but there's an alternative
that we would have taken. It avoids the A25 by going behind Milton
Court on a nasty track but then picks up a brilliant series of
upgraded bridleways that take you to Abinger Hammerbefore plodding
through muddy fields to approach pretty Shere from behind the railway.
I'd have voted to skip this pointless bit through the field, opting
for a short section of the busy A25.

Unfortunately, Route 22 then takes you back up the steep North Downs
to Newlands Corner for a couple of miles along the North Downs Way
before you drop off again, right into the centre of Guildford. I've
seen a proposal that avoids this bit but adds endless miles to reach a
part of the Downs Link old railway line. Whilst that's arguably a
better option, it's hardly direct and we wouldn't have had time for it
today. We'll try the whole ride again at some point, perhaps when
we've got more daylight as you can't ride the heavily wooded North
Downs Way in the dark.

===

NEXT WEEK

Unless the weather is dreadful (in which case, hopefully everyone will
sensibly stay indoors!) we'll be heading to Chislehurst. It's a
slightly different route to the one we've taken before, with a morning
stop at Sparrows Den (where a hoard of Roman coins was recently
unearthed, suspected to have been thrown into a stream for good luck
although the stream has since dried up). Lunch can be either at the
caves where there is a cheap n cheerful cafe or at the adjacent pub.
We'll come back via Crystal Palace park. Whilst it's a mostly tarmac
route, it's not flat. Fine to wait for people but there are a lot of
little climbs so perhaps not the best ride for those not keen on
hills. 9:30 in the library car park.

Mark
PHC Co-ordinator
07711 688189

http://www.pollardshillcyclists.org.uk
http://www.southlondoncyclists.org.uk