Here's this week's news & reports....

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RIDE REPORT
Great Bookham Common 22/03/09

I hadn't given a second thought to the date when I planned the ride
but the 22nd is, of course, Mothering Sunday. That means that country
pubs fill up with people having lunch with their mother. Our preferred
pub was virtually fully booked a week before the ride. Before we
started, I polled the 17 riders to see who wanted to risk getting
served at a pub and who fancied a picnic. We overwhelmingly voted for
the al fresco option as it looked like it was going to be a lovely
sunny day.

The facilitate the picnic, we switched the morning stop to Starbucks
inside Sainsburys at Epsom. That involved a miserable mile of busy
road but it enabled everyone to fill their panniers for lunch. It's
probably not a stop we'll use again in a hurry as you're stuck in a
giant, souless car park. However, there's a traffic-free cycle path
running alongside that put us back on course. Unfortunately, it also
meant an unexpected footbridge over the railway so we all had to carry
our bikes, now much heavier than before with lunch strapped on the
back.

A bit of map reading confusion temporarily swayed us as we tried to
find the path past the old St Ebba's hospital site. It leads to a new
estate which we'll explore on a future version of the Mad ride as it's
one of the old asylums. Although it doesn't feel that you've climbed
any hills at all, there's a spectacular open view all the way to
Wembley opposite the estate. A shared use cycle path leads past the
entrance to Horton Country Park and all the way to Epsom Common.

The paths over Epsom and onto Ashstead Common are great for cycling.
We rode for about 2 miles, completely away from any road. At the end,
a short section of shared use pavement leads to the entrance to
Pachesham park, cleverly disguised as nothing more than a golf course,
presumably to discourage through traffic on this upmarket development.

The A244 at the end of Pachesham Park was unappealing after the rural
solitude of the Commons so I thought we'd cut a corner on the Rowhurst
Avenue bridleway. All looked good at first as it's a recently
gravelled track wide enough for a vehicle. However, it soon turns into
an impassible assault course of overgrown spiky bushes but we'd
reached the point of no return so those with gloves bent the branches
back to allow everyone to pass unscathed. No fun at all.

Lunch was on Fetcham Splash, an idyllic island on the River Mole. The
only problem with picnics in picturesque spots is the lack of
facilities for the female riders. Gentlemen can always utilise a hedge
but the ladies needed to wait until we'd ridden over Great Bookham
Common and reached the village where a handy pub provided relief.

The path onto Mill Pond Springs nature reserve was well and truly
blocked by East Surrey Water who had dug it up. The closure sign
claimed the work should have finished a fortnight ago but it looks
like they're months behind schedule. We picked another path through
lovely giant bullrushes and then made our way around Leatherhead's one
way system to the railway cycle path and on towards Lower Ashtead.

The houses on the private estate of Chalk Lane ("Enter At Your Own
Risk"!) are fairly substantial and presumably their offspring attend
the expensive adjacent City Of London Freeman's school. We chose the
dusty bridleway to descend Langley Vale and rode the tough climb right
to the top of Epsom Downs, busy with kite fliers and model airplanes
fliers and with another cracking view of Wembley and beyond. The Downs
Kiosk provided our al fresco afternoon stop and it's downhill all the
way back to Carshalton from there.

Out for 7.5hrs, 33 miles. See the pix on Flickr at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pollardshillcyclists/3377147102/in/set-721576156808\
66141
or
http://tinyurl.com/phc034

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ADVERTISING ON OUR WEBSITE

We currently have 2 affiliate links that make us a very small amount
of money on our website. I was approached in the week by an American
company offering $100 USD per year if we allowed a car rental ad on
the site. I thought it was highly inappropriate and politely declined.
They then offered a poker website for $130 USD but again I felt it
wasn't right. I've asked them to contact me again if they have
anything more suited to cycling. However, at those rates, it would
almost cover our annual insurance bill. I'd be interested in people's
thoughts of having advertising on the site. It's a text link, not a
banner.

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ATTACKS ON OUR WEBSITE

You may have had difficulty viewing our website in recent weeks with
security software reporting it as hosting malicious software. This is
to do with the code that activates our counter being hacked. All the
code has now been removed and the hits are being counted direct from
the server. I've requested that Google re-evaluates the site and
removes it's warning. If you know of any other sites blocking access,
please let me know so I can request a review.

We're also under constant attack on the forum from spammers. I've
denying about 50 sign up requests a day because I don't like the look
of the chosen User ID. If you're signing up, please use a sensible
User ID that is recognisable as a real human / cyclist and not
anything obtuse or wacky as you'll get lumped in with the spammers. On
the plus side, we've not had any spam on the forum since I was first
alerted to the problem.

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NEW RIDES

Assuming you can access it, the new rides will be on the website by
the middle of the week. If there's a ride you want to do or a
destination you want us to go to, let me know. And, as always, if you
want to lead one, let me know. I'll definitely need someone to do
April 26th.

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NEXT WEEK

A lot of people were keen on this but no one turned out in the
appalling weather on our first attempt last year. We're going to
follow Sustran's National Cycle Network Route 22 all the way to
Guildford. It starts about a mile south of Pollards Hill on the Wandle
Trail and picks a series of paths and lanes all the way. Depending on
numbers of riders (and punctures), we may not get all the way.
Whatever happens, we'll be getting a train back, either from Guildford
(or Dorking). Although a lot of the route is now completed, we've got
the original maps to get us through those bits that aren't signed.
You'll be surprised how much ground you can gain once you've climbed
up to Epsom and over the Downs. All the hills are walkable but some
are off-road which is a bit tougher. Not ideal for novices but anyone
riding regularly will cope. Leaves Pollards Hill library car park at
9:30am. Buy single tickets at Guildford station to return.

Mark
PHC Co-ordinator
07711 688189

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