Group ride with Alec Gore.

Alec's 96-mile Level 3 ride on Saturday was a completely new route which started, as usual from Winnall, had a mid-ride cafe stop at the Baking Bee at Ashbury, a small village in the Vale of White Horse and finished at Sutton Scotney. 10 Riders took part. Thanks to Neil for back marking.

The government's Land Use Survey 2021 shows that only 10% of England is developed, i.e., built for homes and industry, used for roads, rail or utilities, etc. Not that to hear many people talk you'd think it was a lot more - because the most-used roads link developments together, so drivers and riders with little imagination find themselves mainly in the developed parts.

The idea behind this ride was to avoid most of that and delve into the 90%, so more than a third of the ride was on lanes, with the remainder mainly on some cracking B roads.

Leaving Winnall via Kings Worthy we used the A271 and A30 before taking lanes through Cholderton to the A3057 at the Mayfly bridge over the Test, then more lanes through Abbots Ann and Red Post, crossing the A342 at Weyhill, and on through Clanville and Duck Street to Hungerford Lane, which skirts Chute Causeway.

Unfortunately, some of the group had to be patient while stuck behind agricultural vehicles too large to pass safely, but we were together again from Fosbury. We continued on Dark Lane through Oxenwood and crossed the A338 going west to Great Bedwyn, then north to Froxfield on the A4. What a contrast from the lanes! Sweeping bends on a newly surfaced road took us to the edge of Hungerford, then it was the B4192 through Chilton Foliat out to Aldbourne and back to lanes to Foxhill, Hinton Parva, Bishopstone and Idstone to Ashbury.

The Baking Bee knew we were coming, and we'd timed our arrival perfectly just after 11am, avoiding cyclists and the lunchtime crowd. Comments were made on the superb coffee - Italian machine made, and pastries - delicious cinnamon roll! There was enough parking for the bikes and we sat outside.

More riders' roads, the B4507 from Ashbury then the B4001 down through Lambourn and B4000 to Wickham, encountering the only real traffic all morning at the staggered junction across the A338 north of Hungerford. From Wickham it was a single track lane up through woods and between high hedges, then south across the A4 over the Kennet River & Canal and railway at Kintbury and more decent lanes over to Woolton Hill and the A343 at Highclere, before yet more lanes - some with gravel down the middle - to the old A34 at Dunley, from where it was south through Whitchurch, briefly onto the main A34, which was clogged up. Hence, we filtered, then ran down the old A34 into Sutton Scotney to finish at the village shop and petrol station.

Smiles for sure! It had been sunny all morning, but not too hot for riding from 16 degrees at the start to 21 degrees at the finish. The numerous vistas and views for miles over rolling downs and hills, the lanes through picture-postcard villages were almost intoxicating. Makes you wonder why people even go on holiday!