8th May Newsletter
hat a great weekend we had at The New Forest. A huge thanks to Brian for all the excellent organisation. Ride reports below.
We’ve got plenty of rides this weekend, all the details are on Spond.
Tuesday Night Horne TT
It was a good turn out for the first Tuesday night TT of the season at Horne, with 18 riders in total, 6 of which were from OCC. Conditions were overcast but quite still. Thankfully, the rain held off. Full details on times (including the actual time and the adjustments based on age and gender using the VTTA standards) are listed below. A few highlights to pull out are:
Jeremy Lovelace was a full 1 minute faster than his fastest time in 2025. Great progress Jeremy, well done and keep it up!
Martin Harris was brave to give it a go after losing 2kg through a bout of norovirus! Surely his times will come down in future weeks without that to contend with!
It was a strong time by Myles on only his second visit to Horne. His unadjusted time was good enough to put him 3rd on the night, behind Guy Powdrill (23:08) and Marek Siwicki (22:11).
A big thanks to Terry Morgan for stepping in to marshal this week. Josh Guest is down for next week (thanks in advance, Josh!)
Two other points to flag:
Firstly, a shout out to Russell Hicks who was the first OCC rider of the year to complete a 25 miler, down near Ashford in a very respectable time of 1:12:04 (adjusted 1:01:59)
For those who want to keep a track of their times, I will be updating the results in a spreadsheet held in the "Files" section of Spond. So please do go and have a look if you are interested.
Chris
Ride Reports
Matt’s New Forest 100 Mile T3
We thought it would be sensible to stay as a T3 group for a ride of this length, so Michelle, Sam, Bren and myself set off from Brockenhurst. Jeremy joined us from the faster group and we enjoyed a very scenic first 50 miles with quiet country lanes and warm sunshine, including a coffee stop at the beach at 33 miles. We kept the speed on the lower side to try and hold some energy back for the second half.
After a big lunch stop at 50 miles, Sam decided to head back to Brockenhurst after having hardly ridden his bike recently, and the four of us carried on with the earlier sun changing to cloud, then light rain, then heavy rain for a good 20 odd miles. We all got drenched and the ride got tough going with such a long way still to go.
Luckily the rain stopped, spirits lifted and we found a pub for a warm drink after 84 miles, the earlier decision to save energy now paying off as we were riding very strongly. The sun came back out and we were treated to some stunning woodland scenery on the way back to Brockenhurst.
An epic ride and a great route and what a way for Michelle and Jeremy to complete their first century rides.
Many thanks to Brian for organising the whole day, hopefully this can become an annual event.
Brian’s New Forest 100 Mile T5
T5 ride report with Marcel, Roger, Jules, Richard, Austen, Stuart and Brian
2 mins into the ride the summer bikes got wet traversing the ford at Brockenhurst before entering open heathland. The keenest showed early on with a feisty start and a few reminders to moderate the tempo from our road race expert Austen. Before the cafe stop, the Chairman's new tyre punctured and our Colnago (Roger) dropped a chain. With very quiet roads, we upped the pace with some 5 miles of slick chain ganging..
2 hours riding and 33 miles covered, delivered us to the stunning beachfront cafe at Lepe Country Park with vistas across the Solent. Roger’s birthday was celebrated with singing in the cafe.
Arriving at the pub in Ashurst (51 miles),we were blessed with dry weather and pre-ordered lunch in the beer garden.. The afternoon greeted us with light rain turning to a downpour and a cold wind chill - no pm cafe stop. Winter weather met summer bikes.
Part of the charm of the forest is animals rule the road and we were brought to an abrupt halt with a 30 second road closure by donkeys exercising their local roaming rights. Quiet roads and pretty villages were all part of the course.
Marcel suffered from severely stinging eyes caused by rain washing down face moisturiser from his forehead.That was nearly a broom wagon moment, but he bravely pushed on and through it.
The last 10 miles were particularly beautiful riding across open rolling heathland and under the forest canopy of the Rhinefield Ornamental Drive.Smiles all round 101 miles done in 6 hours moving time and great teamwork by all keeping the group together.
16 members from all 3 rides met for an evening meal at Enzees.for much pasta and pizza refuelling. No room for dessert except for Roger who was surprised by a birthday dessert and candle.
A super day with many requests to make this an annual event.
Russell's Sunday T4 - Seven signed up for the ride to Roost, a lovely cafe, a couple of miles north of Lindfield. Our route was via Grinstead Lane, the long hill starting near the junction of Legsheath/Weir Wood reservoir. I wanted to check progress on reported potholes, lots of work has been done in the area but there are still many holes to fix. Taking the photo, David Moss, a friend of mine from Redhill CC (he rides approx 300 miles a week!) Then Scott, Graham, Pete, me, Marian and Rob. Around 50 miles@15.4mph for me, just over 3000 feet of lumps.
Andy’s Midweek Reports
29th April – Emmetts Garden
Just three of us (Mark, Steve, Andy T) met up for a ride from the Hub. A pity really that there weren’t more of us, as the weather was very pleasant apart from a cold wind. Our ride took us our via Marlpit Hill, and Five Fields Lane and then on and up Ide Hill. We made the mistake of riding up to Emmetts via the main entrance, where it turned out to be too difficult to let us into the café without National Trust membership cards, so we turned round and snuck in via a side lane, which took us past the local cricket pitch right up to the NT café. Although we did not have time to do more than take a quick peak, there were some beautiful flowers (notably bluebells) in their late Spring bloom. The route back was via the enjoyable downhill of Chart Lane to Brasted and up to Pilgrims Way, where the three of us split up: Mark into the head wind to Sundridge, Steve onwards with the tail wind to Caterham and I took on Hogtrough Hill and back home via Knockholt and Tatsfield. The route was nominally around 32 miles.
6th May – Otford, Sally’s Cake Emporium
Five riders convened at the Hub: Caroline, Jez, Mark, Steve and Andy. We rode out to the Pilgrims’ Way via the Clacket Lane wiggle, and carried on to “Weathered & Worn” at Polhill, where Jez unfortunately needed to turn round due to concerns about the tyre wall of his rear wheel. The rest of us continued onto Shoreham and Eynesford. Several of the fields were a lovely blue hue: cultivated to grow linseed/ flax, and in around a month’s time, we should be able to cycle out to the nearby Castle Lavender Farm to see more blue fields. From Eynesford we climbed up Bower Lane, where we got stuck at the top behind a sewerage tanker, which took up the full width of the road. Eventually we dropped down Row Dow lane into Otford, where there are at least three coffee/ tea stops. We chose “Sally’s Cake Emporium” because the cycle racks outside the original choice of the “Olive Tree” were already taken up. A great decision given that we all enjoy our cakes: Caroline selected scone and jam (homemade butter); Steve elected to have Mars bar Cake; while Mark and I took on the risk of instant diabetes and teeth decay of the mega sugar rush on offer from the “cookie dough pies” ! The way back to Oxted was via Chipstead and Pilgrims’ Way to Titsey. The route was pre-plotted by Jez and Andy to be 38 miles with 2700 feet of climbing, which was bang on!
Roger’s Midweek T4
The first T4 weekday ride for quite some time, Brian and Roger eventually managed to find each other at Botley Hill - having waited in different places - and then rode on to Four Elms to meet up with Richard and Terry. We took an undulating route out to Ashdown Forest taking in the gentle climb up to Markbeech and then on to Cowden and Butcherfiled Lane. Once through Hartfield we reached Colman’s Hatch where I noted a few furtive glances at start of “The Wall” (not on your list Austen!!) before we headed up the long and consistent climb to Wych Cross. From there it was an easy decent to Sharpthorne where we stopped for Coffee, refreshment and debate concerning the Club’s possible new kit and how to change tubes and tyres on carbon wheel sets.
No sooner had we recommenced our ride and Richard punctured at the base of the climb from Weir Wood Reservoir. This afforded him an opportunity to give a master class on the aforementioned topic of changing a tube on a carbon wheel. This he achieved in a little over four minutes with rims in tact. Restarting with the short sharp climb from the reservoir, we were soon rolling into East Grinstead and then Lingfield. We parted company at Crowhurst with Brian and I heading up to Woldingham. I rode up Bug Hill which was closed the day before and I find has been sprayed top to bottom with gravel and now resembles something from Strade Bianchi. I strongly recommend avoiding this road for the next few weeks: it was difficult to ride up and would be dangerous to descend. 25kmh saw us complete the 90Km route (for the “northerners”) in just over 3 1/2 hours.