Sunday, 17 April

Brooklands - Er? - Ripley

Today, machine took over from man and decided where we should go. Windlesham? Computer say: 'No'. Paul, who understands these things, will explain in his report. Suffice it to say that we were magnetically drawn to cycling's Pole Star, the Anchor at Ripley.

Today's ride went well....for a few miles. Steph, Geoffrey, Jeff, Don, Dave, Graham, John G and myself left Tesco Brooklands and headed up to Addlestone, then on to Ottershaw and into Chobham as planned. My Satnav then decided to try and help me by ignoring the route I had loaded and directing me in the wrong direction and away from Windlesham and the planned route to lunch. This, with a helping of dodgy map reading, sent us down to Woking and followed my planned afternoon route, which would have taken us to Ockham Bites. I didn't realise that I had taken a wrong turn until it was far too late, by which time Don and Dave had decided to follow a different compass heading. When I finally did stop, we were very close to the Anchor, so we lunched there.

When I create the routes in Memory Map and load them into my Satnav, if the route does not line up with the road exactly, it tries to take a different route, which I normally ignore. Lesson learned. Be more careful in creating my routes and do not just follow what it says. This is the first time this has happened and hopefully the last!

Paul

Note from Jeff:
Another supermarket café to tick off today: Brooklands Tesco Extra. Even Barnes Wallis would have got lost in a hangar that size! A shock for Terry on arrival - bumbag missing. Retrace cycle tracks back home to Effingham - no sign. But a call to Mrs L solved all: bag (with mobile) had been found in Byfleet by a good Samaritan and was reclaimed later with all present and correct. Three cheers!
Jeff