Henley avoiding the regatta

For todays bike ride we met at my house.


We crossed the Thames at Aston taking care to Avoid Henley regatta and all it's traffic.
And here's another wobbly i-phone picture of the view as we passed through Hambledon.




A quick stop while Sally phoned ahead to see if her brother was at home to make us a Pimms as we would be passing his house.


Next for my shocker, we were now to make a severe climb up hill to Ibstone, this was a long and very steep climb, luckily mostly in shade. There is a lovely windmill at the top which was used in the film Chitty Chitty bang bang, and was later owned by Hayley Mills, unfortunately you can't see it very well from this side, it is better viewed from Turville valley.

However here's the view from beside the windmill into Turville valley, well worth the climb, but there was still quite a lot more climbing to do.
As we were cycling up this long steep hill we could see a group of cyclists a little ahead of us, when we got to the top we discovered that they were a Family, Mother, Father with small child on the back of his bike and two girls aged about 6 and 8, oh the shame of barely being able to keep up with them, our excuse is that we kept stopping to take photos.

Now we decided to get a move on through Stokenchurch towards Christmas Common and our eagerly awaited Pimms.
Unfortunately Peter, Sally's brother was out of lemonade but produced a fantastic cocktail made from Grand Marnier, home made Elderflower cordial, soda water and a few other bits and pieces, absolutely lovely.


Next swiftly onwards to The Five Horseshoes at Maidensgrove Common before lunch orderes were finished. This is a pub we have visited before and liked very much. We had a lovely Pizza baked in an outdoor wood oven, and of course the usual chips, all scoring the maximum possible 5 saddles.





The kindly pub Labrador guarded our bikes with his life while we were there, actually, I think he was just having a sun bathe, he was fast asleep in this picture.







We started off after lunch with a nice shady decent through the woods to Middle Assendon, but this was not to continue, Another climb up to Swyncombe and Fawley was ahead. I gave Tim and Sally the choice of this short very steep climb, or a much longer but gentler climb, they chose long and gentle, but there was a short section which was so steep we were almost doing wheelies as we climbed.

As we reached Fawley I spotted this light aircraft in a field behind a vineyard, there's a lot of money around here.

We had a job preventing Tim going into the winery and brewery for free tastings, Sally had to block his way.


Another lovely decent down to Hambledon, back across the lock at Aston, then another climb towards Crazies Hill and finally back to my house for tea and home made cakes, you will have to ask Sally and Tim for a saddle rating for the cakes.

43 miles at 10.5 mph. We were beginning to tire towards the end, but we are starting to feel quite fit although none of us has lost much weight, could it be the beer, chips and cakes?