Elmbridge Cycle

Hi there – I’m the [Sustrans] liaison ranger for the Surrey Hills Group. We are Route 22 which is now fully signed from London via Route 20 through the Surrey Hills to Farnham. Next year possibly all the way to Portsmouth. We have a missing link that has frustrated the local populace for years. A Sustrans grant of £90000 has just evaporated due to local politics and the village of Westcott has blown a fuse. They are organising a petition (click here to sign it) and I would be most grateful if you could get some signatures. It only takes a few seconds to do the on line link but you need to be a Surrey resident. I’ve attached a map to show you where we are talking about.

Thank you

Bob Ball
Liaison Ranger
The Surrey Hills Group.

The next Elmbridge Cycle Group ride will be this Sunday 14th November.

It’s time to go East.

Leaving from outside the Hand and Spear at Weybridge Station, we’ll head for Esher, Claygate and possible get as far as Malden Rushett for lunch before heading back through Oxshott and Cobham.

The route will be about 20 miles taking 3 hours or so depending on the pace of the group. The going will be mainly on-road although we’ll try to avoid busy roads as much as possible.

If you want to come along just turn up on Sunday at 11:00am outside the Hand and Spear.

Woking Cycle Group have asked me to let you know about a shared space consultation that is currently being carried out there. The issue is permission to cycle through Woking Town Centre. If you support this then please fill in the form here: http://eforms.woking.gov.uk/default.aspx/RenderForm/?F.Name=Ymq6VwNTU5N so that Woking Borough Council know your views. There’s a discussion of the issue here: http://www.cyclewoking.org.uk/aboutus/news?item=00004CC53820.C0A801BA.00004300.0013 Please do this before December 5th which is the closing date for this consultation.

The Environmental Transport Association a local Weybridge company that provides cycle insurance and an innovative cycle breakdown scheme unveiled their latest bicycle at the Bike Show last week. Watch this video:

The next Elmbridge Cycle Group ride will be this Sunday 10th October.

We’ll be heading West(ish).

Leaving from outside the Hand and Spear at Weybridge Station, we will start by negotiating Walton Bridge and the back streets of Shepperton. Then we take a bearing north-west to zig-zag between several reservoirs, and right across the middle of one of them, before reaching our lunchtime destination of Wraysbury.

On our return we’ll follow the line of the railway back towards Staines and then the towpath along the river to Chertsey and then to Weybridge.

The route will be about 25 miles taking 4 hours or so depending on the pace of the group. The going will be mainly quiet roads on the way out and mostly good quality off-road cycle paths on the way back.

If you want to come along just turn up on Sunday at 11:00am outside the Hand and Spear.

Woking Cycle Group have an all day bike ride on Sunday 3rd October. Contact Ian Wright (07969-506906 or iankwright@hotmail.com) for details, but as far as I know the ride leaves from Brewery Road car park in Woking at 09:30am and will be heading in the direction of Windsor.

The Woking Cycle Group are a friendly lot, we met up with them for a combined ride last weekend. Here’s a photo of us and them having an encounter with a crazy dog at Red Hill.

This Sunday’s bike ride will be this Sunday 19th September at 11:00am.

We’ll be heading South.

Leaving from outside the Hand and Spear at Weybridge Station, we’ll head south on the new path through Seven Arches Bridge to Byfleet and then along the Wey Navigation towards Pyrford and then cross country to Old Woking for lunch.

Something special after lunch. We’ll be heading to Woking Leisure Centre for a 2pm rendezvous with the “semi-serious social cylists” from the Woking Cycle Group. From there we have the option to ride with them for a couple of hours, or to return back along the Basingstoke canal to Weybridge.

The route will be about 20 – 25 miles taking 4 hours or so depending on what we do when we meet up with the Woking group. If you want to come along just turn up on Sunday at 11:00am outside the Hand and Spear.

Everybody had an excellent time at Skyride. The ride in from Weybridge via Kingston was awesome. London was packed, 80,000+ cyclists. Because everyone was wearing identical hi-viz bibs, we immediately started to lose people and some we never saw again.

Here are the photographs:

And some photos here on Flikr of the ride in to London with the Kingston group.

Next Sunday, September 5th, is the London SkyRide. Details here.

It’s a 15km route around central London that will be traffic free from 9:30am until 4:30pm. There’ll be a carnival atmosphere and there will be mass participation with about 65,000 cyclists.

The Elmbridge Cycle Group will be leading cyclists from Weybridge into London to join the SkyRide. Departing at 9:00am from Weybridge Station, we will ride to Kingston where a larger group will set out at 10:00am. We’ll be arriving at Buckingham Gate at around 12:00.

Once in London we will do at least one circuit of the route. You can either stay with the group or break off and do your own thing. Return will be from Buckingham Gate at 4:00pm and will arrive back in Weybridge by about 7:00pm.

If you’ve never cycled into London do not be put off by the thought. It’s not as formidable as you might imagine, much of the route is traffic free, and there are well marked cycle lanes on most of the on-road sections.

If you want to join in there are three options:
1) Ride from Weybridge, starting at 9:00am, via Kingston in to central London
2) Join us at 10:00am at Kingston Market Place and ride into London from there
3) Take the train into central London and join up with us around 12:00 somewhere near Buckingham Palace

Please let me know if you want to take part. You need to tell me:
1) Which option 1, 2 or 3 you are going to take
2) Your mobile phone number (so that we can coordinate meeting points etc during the day).
Email this information to georgej@georgejames.com

There is a registration process for the SkyRide, but it’s not compulsory for the central London part, and I’ll take care of the registration for the Kingston to London part.

Last Sunday the clouds lifted for a few hours, the rain held off and we had one of the best rides yet.

A record seventeen people turned up, all ages, from far and wide (and Woking) and inevitably a couple of people on a tandem. We set off on the challenge to find the best route to Kingston.

At a leisurly pace we arrived in Kingston less that an hour later having avoided most of the busy roads and all of the hills. The route was shorter than the towpath along the Thames, being more direct. We avoided the hills around Esher by passing to the north following the line of the railway. Quiet side roads until Hersham when the route goes off road through the back of Esher and on through Thames Ditton. We rejoined the main Portsmouth Road before Surbiton where it has a good cycle lane all the way into the middle of Kingston.

From there we rolled slowly through the busy waterside area and joined the towpath to the north of Kingston. Arriving at Teddington lock we crossed the river on the footbridge and arrived at the Anglers for lunch.

The hog roast was popular, and accompanied by a cold beer, it met with widespread approval.

Our return route took us along Teddington High Street, through Bushy Park and then back along the towpath all the way to Weybridge. Arriving back just in time to beat the rain.

Thank you to everyone who came along. It was a great ride and a good day out. I hope to see all of you again on the next one.

The next Thursday Evening bike ride will be this Thursday (ie tomorrow), August 5th at 6:30pm.

We’ll start from outside the Hand and Spear at Weybridge Station as usual. The route will take the very back way through Addlestone and on into Chertsey. Through the middle of Gogmore Farm Park and sweeping round the back of Chertsey past the site of Chertsey Abbey and then back via the Meads to Weybridge. The ride should last no more than 2 hours with the possibility of some liquid refreshment at the end. The route will be a mix of off-road and quiet residential roads with only a couple of short main road sections.

If you want to come along just turn up on Thursday at 6:30pm outside the Hand and Spear.