Despite a miserable week of weather, the forecast for tomorrow is excellent which bodes well for this our ride. The plan is to head towards Whitchurch via Soulbury using one of Mr Bembridge’s routes. We gather at the Rose & Crown from 9:45am with a view to departing at 10am. There isn’t a a designated lead rider as yet so we will sort something in the morning including any grouping to suit riders’ preferred pace.

10am Ride

This maybe a long way off, but if you are thinking of going to the London Bike Show in February 2014, there is an offer on at the moment to get tickets at 50% off. The code to use is LBS200 but act fast as it expires at the end of this month.

Lastly, we are in the process of knocking up an online survey to get an idea of what people like and don’t like. If you have a particular question you think should be in the survey, please use the contact us form and let us know your thoughts.

Sunday Ride

Whilst a few of our group are either broken, on another local ride or enjoying the French countryside this weekend, there are still plenty of us left to enjoy what is forecast to be a dry Sunday morning. Mr Bembridge has once again sent in a route for us to enjoy. We gather at the Rose & Crown from 9:45am with a planned departure of 10am.

10am Bembridge Route

Free Breakfast

If you don’t fancy our ride we have news of a great alternative thing to do on your bike. The Cycle Chilterns team are organising a Free Breakfast for the first 300 cyclists who visit the Chilterns Countryside Festival at Ashridge tomorrow morning. Full details can be found on their website.

Velos on Tour

In addition to the Normandy Invasion that launched earlier this week, there are a couple of other Velos on Tour this weekend. If you would like to find out more, have a look at their blogs : Tour of Corsica and John O’Groats to Lands End

 MK Dons Family Day

On Saturday the 19th October the MK Dons have a Family Fun Day at StadiumMK for their League One match against Rotherham. They have a great deal on the gate where all under 18s are just £1 (adults £10). More details on our Events Page.

 Churches Ride

Well done to the Tea Ride today who did a whistle stop tour of the local Churches. Many thanks to Angela for leading the ride.

Our early start ride is a Dave Howe route that we have ridden previously, but to shake things up we are going the opposite way this time. As usual, we meet at 8am to ensure we are back for lunchtime.

8am Route – Tour around Aylesbury Vale

The ‘normal’ 10am start is as below. We don’t have a nominated leader yet so please bring the route on paper or your GPS unit in case you end up being nominated navigator !

10am 24 mile route

We have an evening ride planned by Mr Howe for Tuesday 20th. The meeting point is Pitstone Village Roundabout and the meeting time is 7pm. If you don’t fancy the full 23 miles, there is an opportunity to take a cheeky short cut at Dagnall. Lights are advised if you plan to rehydrate at the Rose and Crown afterwards.

Road Ride Route

Ride London 100 2014

First up, we have a recommendation. If you fancy having a chance at riding the London 100 in 2014, the ballot has opened and is filling up fast. 60,000 have registered already and they will close it at 80,000 so if you want to give it a go, have a look at their registration page.

Early Start : The Benson Finger

For our 8am ride we are revisiting a great route planned by Mr Beezer earlier this year. It starts out pretty lumpy but we are rewarded with a fantastic downhill run and some lovely villages to amble through. The 2nd half is pretty flat so we plan to ride as a group. There is a shop at the half way point for us to refuel.

8am ‘Early Start’ Route

Usual Velos Ride

Mr Bembridge has kindly contributed a ride for this weeks ‘normal start time’ ride. Unfortunately he can’t lead it out so Sarah has volunteered to head up a steady paced group. As is the norm, we gather from 9:45am at the Rose and Crown Ivinghoe with a view to depart at 10am.

10am Normal Ride Route

For anyone who isn’t doing one of the charity rides, we have a couple of suggestions for this Sunday.

8am Early Starter ride

This is a reverse of the big 62 mile loop around Luton and Leighton Buzzard that we did a few weeks back. We will be leaving at 8am and the pace is likely to be swift.

Early start 62 mile route

10am ride

Just in case there is anyone who doesn’t fancy an early start, and is not doing the charity ride, here is a route for a 10am start.

10am 28 mile route

Thanks

Many thanks to everyone who made the birthday tea ride very special for Elke today. We had a lovely cake stop in the woods at Ashridge with a great bunch of friends.

Lots of options this week for your Sunday ride.

Early start Canal Ride to Euston

Mr Bembridge and Mr Hollands have arranged a reverse of the very popular canal ride between Euston and Ivinghoe. So this time the idea is to ride the canal to Euston, refuel and get the train back home.
Start 8am sharp (to be early is on-time to be on-time is late!) at the car park on the Cheddington side of Pitstone Wharf (where the boats go from). Postcode LU7 9AD . If you are interested, please view our page here with full details.

Early start road ride by Mr Beezer

This lovely route involves a full circumnavigation of both Luton and Leighton Buzzard. It is around 100k in length so we start early – 8am from the Rose and Crown. Mr Beezer will lead out the speedy lot. Elke is doing this ride in preparation for the Ride London 100 so if you would rather a 14-15 mph ride, she is happy for people to join her.

The Mr Beezer route – 8 am start 

Normal 10am road ride

If an early start isn’t for you, we have our normal 10am ride, starting at the Rose and Crown from 10am. We don’t have a nominated lead organised yet so please do bring your maps / GPS device with the route on.

10am start from the Rose and Crown

Blatant Self Promotion

Whilst I am very aware that there is a real chance of charity fatigue , I am going out on a limb and ask anyhow. Me and the wife (e.g. Hegs & Elke) are both riding the Ride London 100 bike event on the 4th August for Macmillan Cancer Support and The British Heart Foundation. If you feel so inclined, please have a look at our fund raising pages to see why – if only to see a picture of me as a fat little baby !

http://www.justgiving.com/johnhegs

http://www.justgiving.com/elkehegs

Tonight (Tuesday 16th July) we will be gathering at the Pitstone Village roundabout for an evening road ride. We depart at 7pm and will be in two groups : The speedy lot and a more reasonable pace set by Mr Bembridge.

On Thursday evening we meet at the same spot from 7:30pm for an off-road adventure. Lights will be a prerequisite.

Finally, we would like to wish Andrew and Jose Bon Voyage for their bike ride to Paris this week. Wishing tail winds for you all the way.

Early route

Given the popularity of the early start / long routes, we are again scheduling an extra early one tomorrow morning. The route has been planned by Dave “The Hill” Howe and takes us to Chorleywood. We will be departing from the Rose & Crown at 8am. Bring lots of water and something to eat as the route is 55 miles long. In terms of ability groups, we will make arrangements on the day.

Long Route with 8am start
We are trying out linking to a new site for this route. If you want to export to your GPS device, use the ‘Export’ tab on the right and select either the TCX Course option (for Garmin 200/500/510) or GPX Track for all other devices that do route mapping.
Don’t bother with the ‘Direct Write’ option unless you already have a premium account with the site.

Usual 10am Route

Mr Bembridge has supplied our standard route this week. We gather from 9:50am and leave the pub at 10am. Again, it is worth bringing a couple of bottles of water if you can because the forecast is scorchio.

The Bembridge route meeting at 10am

Early Start Ride to Silverstone

Given the fantastic weather, we are putting out a longish ride, planned for us by Mr Beezer. It takes us to Silverstone and back via some beautiful countryside so it is well worth getting up a bit earlier than normal. We will be departing the Rose & Crown at 8am which should give us plenty time to complete the route, rehydrate at the Pub and watch Mr Murray win Wimbledon. We don’t have a nominated lead rider yet so please do bring your GPS devices or maps of the route together with water bottle(s) and something to eat. In all the route is around the 65 mile mark and varies between flat and rolling rather than any big climbs.

The route to Silverstone – 8am start

Note : If you have a Garmin that doesn’t have built in maps (like the Garmin 200 or 500/510) we have had a stab at creating a course file that you should be able to download to your device and get directions for this long route. We haven’t tested it though so please make sure you have a paper based map backup. The file is located here.

Usual 10am ride

For those wanting to ride something more like our usual ride, we have one planned by Mr Bembridge. It doesn’t look like he will be able to join us this week to lead it out so please again, bring the route on your GPS device or the more traditional ‘bit of paper’. We meet for this ride from 9:50am for a 10am departure.

Usual Ride – 10am start 

Centuries

We would like to congratulate Mark & Dave who last week each rode their first Century (100 miles). They showed an enormous amount of grit and determination on what was an incredibly hilly course. Well done chaps, we are very proud of you.