The autumn colour seemed late this year, but last week on the Remembrance Day ride from Stockbridge to Winchester the autumn colours were in full display on Windmill Hill near Crawley so I thought we had left it a bit late for our ride to Burnham Beeches the following week. However, sixteen of us assembled at the Arboretum car park at Dorney Lake for the ride to Burnham Beeches - DavidB, Siobhan, JohnM, Rod, DavidC, Lin, Mick, Carol, Clive, Vanessa, JohnR, Helena, Keith, PeterH, Brian and me. Peter led the first group with Keith, JohnM, Vanessa, Clive, David B and Siobhan whilst the rest of us formed the second group, aiming for a more leisurely pace.

We were very fortunate that one of our members, Keith Vaughan, who used to do this for a living, ran two first aid courses for the group. The courses were held at the Old Basing Bowls Club on 21st October and 1st November when eighteen group members received training in first aid with a focus on cycling, each course lasting 4.5 hours. We were all impressed by Keith's professional approach and gve it rave reviews afterwards.

Make sure to have these three apps on your phone when out riding - what3words for giving your location to the emergency services, St John Ambulance First Aid - Android or St John Ambulance First Aid - Apple and Save a life - find your nearest defibrillator

The weather was glorious for our trip to the Isle of Wight as Vanessa, Mick, Graham, MarkS, MarkW, Ray, Brian and I met up at the ferry terminal in Southampton for the 10:00 sailing to East Cowes. As usual the bikes boarded first, so we were first in the queue for the best seats and the coffees. This time we were taking a different route to the south coast, heading out on the Round the Island cycle route on the east side of the River Medina as far as Wootton Creek before taking a shortcut cross-country to Ventnor. This is a much hillier route than the usual one using the Red Squirrel Trail.

I had wanted to ride over the Gospel Pass, the highest road in Wales, during the summer, but was not able to fit it in. Mick and David volunteered to accompany me, so we left Basingstoke at 7am on a damp and overcast morning and drove to Abergavenny with our bikes on the back. It was quite cool when we unloaded the bikes in the main car park, and with jackets on, we started off on the ride at 9:15. Within a few hundred yards we started the climb up the Old Hereford Road, 10% for a mile - hard going on cold muscles. The gradients eased off and we headed up the single track road up the Vale of Ewyas to the Gospel Pass. The road climbed steadily and at about 5 miles in we saw a pub, the Queen's Head, beside the road and stopped there and had a coffee and very nice cake overlooking the River Honddu and the mountains on either side of the valley.

Nine of us travelled down in four cars to Avebury on Tuesday - Graham, Mick, SueP, Paul, David, SueC, Carol, Peter and me. A good journey down but with some light rain as we got closer to Avebury.  The main NT car park was closed for repairs but as we were early, we parked OK in the coach park - the main car opened after we left. It felt a bit cooler as we headed off into Avebury Village past the standing stones and onto a bumpy track beside a field following the NCN403, The Wiltshire North Rivers Route, and then onto tarmac roads and wide gravel tracks.

There were 12 of us on this tour. Alistair was still unable to cycle so could not join us cycling despite having done all the planning and route research. So it was Brian, David and Sue, Graham, Keith, Len and Lin, Mark, Mick, Peter, Rod and Sue P who set out for the Cotswolds summer tour.

Although all the other trips for this year have been cancelled due to the Covid pandemic, the Devon C2C trip went ahead. Some of the original group opted to give the trip a miss, reducing the participants to SueP, Lin, SueC, Carol, Mick, David, Peter, Rod, Graham, Brian and Ray. I was not fit enough to do the full ride so provided luggage transfer and backup. Three of us chose to travel down to Barnstaple on Sunday 16th August with Peter taking the train whilst Mick and I drove down. On the Monday, David, Rod and the ladies travelled down to Barnstaple by car, then David and Rod continued to Plymouth to leave the cars there. Graham drove direct to Plymouth whilst Brian and Ray drove to Exeter, all then taking the train to Barnstaple.

 As the time drew closer to the start of the trip, the weather forecasts became more threatening, but although given the option to call it off, everybody was still keen to go.
 
On Monday 23rd September, David, SueP, SueC, Mick, Carol, Len, Lin and me checked into the Premier Inn in Canterbury and we met up later for sightseeing during the afternoon. It had been dry earlier when David and his group took a boat trip on the river but it started to rain a bit, not heavy, after we met up later at the Patisserie Valerie for coffee and cake before heading back to the hotel.

The Lon Cambria is a cycle route starting in Shrewsbury and crossing the Cambrian Mountains to Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast designated as National Cycle Network Route 81.  Those taking part on the trip were to be Mick, Mark, Peter, Rod, Richard and Alistair with Laurie and Chris, who now live near Shrewsbury, joining us for parts of the ride. Richard's wife Sylvia was driving along the route, providing luggage transfer and emergency backup.

In the week before the trip, the weather forecast for the Mosel valley was rain all day every day, but as it got closer the forecasts generally improved. We were all going by car to Trier and mostly taking our bikes with us. Carol did not fancy the long road trip and flew Heathrow to Luxembourg with a taxi transfer to Trier instead. When we woke up early on the Wednesday, the persistent rain of the last few days had stopped.  The bikes were loaded and we were on the road nice and early.