This year we take as our theme one of the most sacred and well-trafficked of cyclist thoroughfares, the Portsmouth Road, known universally
to men and women of the wheel as the Ripley Road, for the 23-mile jaunt from London to Ripley was for no fewer than 20,000 cyclists
their annual Whit Sunday destination.
From London to Ripley on Sundays of yore the road was clotted with young swains and damsels,
scortchers and potterers both, coursing over the gravel which for the cyclists was otherwise untrammeled except by the occasional
coach or oxcart.
Our ride, too, will be along the Ripley Road, past lovely Lake Ripley.
Half along scenic crushed limestone
trail, exploring the fauna and flora of meadow and moor, and half on macadamized road surface down many a byway of the country shires
where we shall become acquainted with the colourful and curious habits of the local rustics. Along the way we pass through the bustling
metropolises of London and Cambridge.
We keep to the fore the motto that as an army marches on its stomach, so doth a cycling
party pedal on its. And so, along the path, we'll stop for a classic drum-up of tea and what have you. By sacred vow upon the Union
Jack on John Bull's belly, it'll be a ride you won't want to miss!
