Dieppe 2025

There were relatively few of us in Dieppe this year. 8 A's including Hans on Sunday morning plus Diane. Although the traditional Friday-Monday weekend was most popular some of us were there for longer with Neil W and I travelling out on Thursday. Clive can almost certainly claim a first by having sailed himeself to Dieppe. There were three days with group rides.

Friday 27th

Neil, Steve D and I rode inland to Saint-Saens. It was a rather damp morning with intermittent drizzle. We followed the Avenue Verte to St Aubain le Cauf and then struck off up the lane (D98/107) that leads to Val de Ricarville. A lovely route which we had mostly to ourselves.

After 10 miles, and fewer cars, we turned right onto the D12 and went over the hills to Saint Saens, a small town equipped with a few cafes, an excellent bakery and, surprisingly, two red GPO post boxes in the square. After lunch an unplanned bonus was leaving the town via the pretty Rue des Tanneurs.

We set off back along the D154 (well known as a regular exit from Dieppe) and met a rather hungry Patrick in Bellencombre who had ridden from Fecamp and found no lunch. We offered hope of finding food in Torcy le Grand but on arrival the bakery was shut - but fortunately only for 5 minutes until it re-opened at 3pm. So ice creams for us and a sandwich for Patrick and we had four happy cyclists ready to ride back to Dieppe.

Saturday 28th 

All seven of the As together with Duncan Stewart and his pilot Andy on a tandem decided to follow Simon's 2018 route west to Veules les Roses. 

After the customary photo stop before Pourville we avoided the brutal climb up the lane and stayed on the D75 to Varengeville. After coffee at Quiberville I naively believed that the gpx would follow the route I remember doing with Simon. Unfortunately it stuck to the main road as we approached Veules and Andy H, dutifully following the gpx, tried to lead us left at the top of the village into the foodless wilderness. A few old hands rebelled and we all rode down into Veules for lunch. Fortunately we had no repeat of the 35C afternoon that we endured on the previous trip and the return was uneventful.

 

We all had dinner as a group that evening. 

 

Sunday 29th

 

Duncan and Andy had decided to set off early - supposedly because they wanted plenty of time on the tandem but in fact beat the rest of us by an hour.  

 

The As (now 8 with Hans) all started the 140km at about 8.15 with a slightly damp sea mist spreading inland. We were promised sun later in the day but didn't get it until we were back in Dieppe though this did give us a comfortable temperature for the ride. 

 

As on previous rides the arrows on the road and the gpx diverged at times - much more so this year than I have ever known. One very steep descent through a wood was definitely not the usual/intended route and the regular confusion in Baqueville en Caux divided the group with those of us preferring tradition to the gpx waiting a while after the town before we all regrouped. 

 

Coffee and pastries in Auffay has now become a regular feature of this route.

 

Neil W and Hans left us at lunch and so we were down to six for the afternoon. The pace had been quite fast to lunch. I struggled a bit to keep up with the youngsters in the afternoon though eventually the tortoise beat a couple of the hares up the final climb from Cuverville. A swift run into Dieppe had us back before 4.30 and we celebrated with a beer or two at a bar by the port.

It has to be said that second Pelforth on relatively empty stomachs didn't enhance some of our bike handling skills on the return to the hotel! Finally we all joined forces again for dinner.

It was a lovely weekend of cycling - just a pity that there weren't a few more Sou'westers to share it with. Maybe next year?

 

I think Janice and Andy H rode home from Newhaven on Monday but given the 30C temperatures in the UK I let the train take the strain.  

 

C&M Easter Tour 2025 - Saturday Ride to Reculver and Herne

By Paul James

The Saturday and Sunday rides on this year’s Easter Tour were led by Pete, but there was another ride out of Canterbury that Saturday, led by Helen, and what a pleasant ride it was.

We let Pete’s group go first and then left Canterbury in a South Easterly direction up a modest off road climb up Bekesbourne Hill to Cobbs Meadow where we turned to spend a few moments take a view of the city, dominated by its magnificent cathedral before continuing through the wheat fields to pick up the Bekesbourne Road.

There was a bit of traffic at first but the roads were so much clearer than South West London despite it being a sunny Saturday on a Bank Holiday weekend near the coast; it was like riding in Normandy; a pretty flat Normandy at that. There was a robust wind, sometimes in our faces, sometimes blowing across us as we travelled North East. It was enough to split any peloton and we had become strung out along the road long before we saw the signs for Howlett’s Wild Animal Park where, given the history, I felt it wise to hang back from the front and let those wearing orange and black take the eye of any wandering feline escapees.

The countryside was chocolate box and one was tempted to stop and take pictures. When we arrived at the village of Wickhambreaux this urge became irresistible and we all dismounted and regrouped beneath the spreading chestnut tree by the thatched cottages.
 

Wickhambreaux

We turned Eastwards full square into the wind which strung us out again as we crossed the River Stour at a place with the potentially comedic name of Plucks Gutter and made our way to a little street corner café in Minster for elevenses in a traditional English setting, a sunny garden sheltered from the wind.
 

Suitably refreshed, we turned North, at last, and keeping better together, passed through Birchington on Sea to hit the Thames Estuary coast at Minnis Bay. Even on a Bank Holiday weekend these are not heavily populated places and we turned West, up river, along the Northern Sea Wall. Ahead of us, silhouetted on the distant skyline, were the iconic Reculver Towers and, riding in a group but also alone, one felt a tranquillity with the wind now behind us as we passed the few cycling in the opposite direction fighting the wind as we had done and made our way along the bleakly beautiful coast towards the towers, some miles away.
 

There is a bleakness to this coastline, and cocooned in a tranquil bubble as I cycled along, no traffic, no hazards, no potholes, no pedestrians, one had the chance of reflection. To the horizon on our left, nothing but marshland. In 1943 the Government moved the trials of the bouncing bomb to this coastline from Chesil Beach in Dorset because it was less populated and the secrets could be better kept and it had the towers as easy navigational assistance for low flying Lancaster bombers.  The film clips you might have seen of these trials were shot at Reculver. For years after the raid two stray prototypes of Barnes Wallis’ invention lay untouched in the bog where they had bounced off course; it was only in 1977 that the Army turned up and removed them.

On the seaward side, the estuary here so wide you cannot see the other side even on such a clear day, there lies the infamous shoal known as the Kentish Knock where in 1652 the English fleet repelled the Dutch invader in a major naval battle. I wondered if you could have seen it from here.  You certainly could not have seen anything on the night of 6 December 1875 when the SS Deutschland ran aground in a snowstorm. She was carrying emigrants from Bremen, trying to go round the coast to Southampton and ultimately bound for New York. Nobody could see her flares and distress signals in the blizzard and 57 lives were lost, men and women, but including five Catholic nuns escaping religious persecution in Bismark’s Germany. The incident would probably now have been forgotten had it not been immortalised in a famous poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

While I was lost in my reveries, imagining I could see the rim of a rusty oil-drum shaped bomb in the furze, the miles ate themselves up and soon we were at the towers and dismounting to pass through the ruins.
 

I would have loved to have spent a bit longer there. I could remember being taken as an eight year old and being excited about it falling into the sea, only to be disappointed the following year when it was still there. All these decades later I was pleased to see it much as I remembered it.  The Romans built a small fort at Reculver soon after they landed in Britain in 43AD, and constructed a much bigger fort around 190AD, one of a string of forts to protect the Kent coastline. The Saxon kings turned the buildings into a church in 669 and by the time of the Domesday Book in 1086 it was a wealthy Norman church in a thriving town on the coastal sea routes. Silting and erosion over the years saw its decline and after 5 houses and the inn were lost in storms and high tides in 1804, the sea defences and then the church were dismantled, the towers left standing as a navigational aid.
 

We cyclists just pushed our bikes to the grassy knoll beyond and had a rest in the sunshine before proceeding Eastwards along the cliff, an off-road climb, and then down, via an unwitting detour, to the sea front at Herne Bay where we split up to find lunch.
 

After lunch we set out together Westward but soon split, Paul’s group moving ahead of Helen’s. I was with Paul as we went through Hampton to Tankerton and took another unwitting detour seeking the Northern end of the Crab and Winkle Way, a cycling and hiking route which follows the old railway line South to Canterbury. Well, nearly follows it; we discovered that some of the gradients through the woods were appropriate only for a funicular railway.

It is in the main a dedicated track, off road but not difficult, through the quiet countryside.  We stopped at the church of SS Cosmus and Damian at Blean, known for good reason as the church in the fields. Nowadays it seems odd that a church here should be named after these two saints, who lived in the Eastern Mediterranean. They were twin brothers, Arab physicians in the third century who converted to Christianity and treated people without charging. They were killed along with their  three younger brothers during the persecution of Christians by the Roman Emperor Diocletian around 300 AD. In late Roman times, though, their fame was widespread. This beautiful, simple church in the middle of nowhere claims its foundation around the time Augustine came to re-introduce Christianity to England, around 598AD. There was a church there at the time of the Domesday Book but the present building was built by order of Henry III in 1233 at a cost of £20.3s.8d.
 

From there it was only a few miles back through Dukes Meadow and past the University of Kent before we re-entered the cathedral city, this time from the North West.  

It had been a different, and really enjoyable day out. 70 km of cycling by my reckoning and only 400m of climbing.

Thank you Helen and Paul for all the trouble in preparing and recceing a ride such a long way from home.

ride to Canterbury · Pete's Saturday ride · Helen's Saturday ride · Sunday ride · ride home

C&M Easter Tour 2025 - the ride home

The happy band of pilgrims gathered for one last breakfast on Monday morning, broke bread and made toast, and people started making their way home.  Some by car, some by train and some by bicycle.  Keith rode (nearly) all the way home in a single day.  Seven of us hit the road towards Tonbridge as part of a two-day ride home.   The first day was a ride of three halves.

Running legends

... and some others
(we had photo fatigue by this stage of the weekend)

We rode across the Kent Downs to Charing for elevenses, hard riding as the start of the ride was littered with hills, so by the time we arrived it was twelveses.  With some difficulty we found a sports pavilion bar for refreshment.  After that we had a very long ride along the top of a ridge towards lunch, slightly downhill, so we sped along and arrived for a most enjoyable outdoor lunch at the Cock Inn, Boughton Monchelsea, at a respectable time.  After that we wiggled around in the valley of the baby river Medway, easy cycling in the sunshine, passing people sitting outside in pub gardens, until we arrived at Tonbridge and the Premier Inn.

Tuesday was even warmer as we rode through the High Weald of Kent, passing the 14th century manor house Penshurst Place and then the pretty village of Penshurst.  At Cowden, we paused to admire the CTC sign at the Fountain Inn, a watering hole favoured by the Midweek Wayfarers on lengthy rides led by Jeff Tollerman and Brian Greenwood.  After a long and lovely ride, we eventually descended off the Weald to Dormansland, where we were disturbed by the sight of two cars at the same time.  So much traffic!

Nice shot of the car park!

The level of traffic gradually increased to normal Surrey levels by the time we reached Lingfield for 11s, and then we made our way on more familiar lanes to Horley and on to Leigh for our last lunch of the tour, and finally to Pixham, where we all went our separate ways.  My thanks to the riders on both outward and return journeys for excellent company and your good-natured response to various hiccups.  The unexpectedly good weather also helped make for very enjoyable rides.

At Leigh

ride to Canterbury · Pete's Saturday ride · Helen's Saturday ride · Sunday ride · ride home

C&M Easter Tour 2025 - Sunday ride to Deal

Lured by the promise of a flat ride

Today, Pete B led a surprising, unconventional ride, which he described as a flat ride to Deal.  23 of us joined him.  It was a beautiful route, but also educational.  We came to realise, through our experiences on the ride, that there are many different types of flat roads.

Some of the flat roads carefully curated by Pete had the strange sensation of drag, of being almost held back by an invisible force.  It was tiring to ride along these flat roads.  We knew they were flat, because Pete had told us so himself. 

Other flat roads almost willed you along with little or no effort; in some extreme cases people had the sensation of speeding up without pedalling - for a few this was so disconcerting they felt compelled to put the brakes on, despite being on a completely flat road.   Such a strange sensation, which seemed to defy rational explanation.

Our destination was the east coast town of Deal, the inspiration behind many marketing and political campaigns, tables, and card games.   

Instead of going directly east, Pete's route curved to the south to find a lot of these special flat roads.  We rattled through places like Ratling, but by Frogham, some people were feeling a bit croaky.  Coffee was needed, so Pete stopped to look at the map.  Deal was a good deal further on, but amazingly, there was a heritage railway nearby; Eythorne station on the East Kent Railway had a cafe, situated in HRH Queen Elizabeth's rail car, used to transport her in style to & from Sandringham.  We watched the Easter Bunny Special (train) depart, enjoyed coffee & cake, and viewed the exhibits, including a carriage specially built to transport elephants.  Those were the days!  The coaches were used to take elephants to the seaside, since elephants in the wild and captivity enjoy swimming.  The coaches had to have large, specially designed pouches to store their trunks.

11s stop

Aboard the Queen's royal cafe train

 

One for the railway enthusiasts

Elephant carriage

On to Deal, which has an impressive castle, called Deal Castle, the seaside, and a good choice of eating places.  After lunch we rode north along a rather sketchy coastal cycle path, and then inland to Sandwich, famously the place where the Earl of Sandwich invented (and named) the Sandwich.   They're pretty hot on naming stuff round there.

Deal Castle

The sun has got his windproof on - at Deal

Now we had a tail wind and we were on the Thanet Levels, an area of low-lying marshland between the so-called Isle of Thanet and the rest of Kent.  These flat roads were of the traditional sort, and we were flying along heading back to Canterbury.  Amazingly there was virtually no traffic.  Roads on the levels zig-zagged around the fields in right angles, and it was awesome to see twenty plus riders in different shades of high vis, streaming across the landscape.

 

A bit later on, we bumped into Simon & Jen coming the other way to meet us.  Luckily no-one was hurt this time, and we rode back to the hotel together.  It was an excellent and fun day out, a big group held together by a lot of corner marking, great leading by Pete and back marking by Diane.

(Video from Jen)

Simon and Jen's off-road ride

Later that evening I was invidiously picked upon by some of the others, for no good reason other than it was my birthday, and unfairly made to do a speech.  It was a good opportunity to thank Helen and Pete for leading lovely rides, and Lilian for taking over the organisation of the Easter Tour and putting on such an enjoyable event.

Thank you!

ride to Canterbury · Pete's Saturday ride · Helen's Saturday ride · Sunday ride · ride home

Cheam & Morden Easter Tour 2025 - Saturday ride to Folkestone

This year we had the luxury of two alternative rides on Saturday,  offered by Helen and Pete B respectively, with roughly equal attendance.   There is a separate report for Helen's ride.

 

Outside the hotel

Pete's ride went south.  We left the hotel, did a bit of a twiddle and were immediately on a country cycle path through fields.  It was remarkably flat - at first - for a Pete ride, as we continued down the valley of Pert Bottom and Lynsore Bottom, cheekily known as The Bottoms.   Then the hills started, as we climbed over to the next valley, to coffee at a vineyard.

Interesting pub names

Interesting duck ears (at Pert Bottom),
where Ian Fleming wrote You Only Live Twice

Interesting riders at the vineyard 11s

Next - more hills, ever southwards, until we reached a high escarpment with a view over the Eurotunnel station at Folkestone, laid out like a model railway below us.

Over the hill

You can just make out the Eurotunnel station below

We descended towards our lunch stop, but unfortunately one of our group came off the bike, so plans were changed as we did some running repairs to bike and rider.  Instead we ate at a miniature railway cafe in Peene, before a sub-group set off to get the train home to Canterbury.  Pete devised a short cut, which turned out to be very beautiful, taking us on a long climb up to a ridge.  We rejoined our route riding north along the top of the ridge, almost to Canterbury.  An impromptu tea stop happened at a viewpoint, where Andy produced a pack of chocolate hot cross buns to share.

Some of the lunch crew at Peene

Many thanks to Pete for a scenic and enjoyable ride, conducted with inimitable style, and to all those who took photos.

ride to Canterbury · Pete's Saturday ride · Helen's Saturday ride · Sunday ride · ride home

Cheam & Morden Easter Tour 2025 - the pre-ride

The C&M Easter Tour is an annual trip with three nights and two days of riding based somewhere away from London, with some people taking extra days to ride to & from the tour.   This year the venue was Canterbury.  The pre-ride to Canterbury proved very popular, with 14 people (ten ladies!) riding.  Jennie remarked "It's going to be a very chatty ride", and so it proved with lots of banter and fun.  The weather forecast had been dubious but in the event we had good weather for the whole weekend.

11s at Greenwich; still smiling

We split the ride over two days with an extra night in Rochester, and decided to ride out of London along the Thames Estuary.  Sunshine and clear blue skies arrived at just the right time and London's Docklands looked beautiful in their industrial way.  Everyone was in high spirits as we followed a Tony Hooker route from Greenwich to Erith, after which things went a bit downhill.   There's a seemingly unavoidable busy road from Erith to Dartford,  where the best option is a roadside cycle path.  Dartford was jammed solid with traffic, and when we turned off onto the quiet lane to Darenth, it too was queuing along its length, in the opposite direction to us.  We surmised that there was a problem on the M25 and this was overflow, but it could just have been bank holiday traffic.

Another 'quiet' lane, another jam; this time an articulated lorry in a too-narrow lane had created a logjam of cars and vans trying to come the other way.  We could get past on our bikes, but the cars were stuck there for the rest of the day, we reckoned.  We even felt slightly sorry for them.  Eventually we made it to quiet Gravesend and a late lunch stop; outdoors, while a police helicopter buzzed angrily overhead. 

Lunch in Gravesend

Finally we were actually on quiet roads, along an old canal, past the military equivalent of Diggerland, and then, with Rochester almost in sight, we came across a pub at Upper Upnor, a tiny charming village on the Medway.   To cap it all, our Premier Inn could not take card payments, so we had to make alternative arrangements for eating.  Wallace would have said "Eh Gromit, that didn't go too badly", meaning that an enjoyable day had been plucked from the jaws of disaster.

Ooh! look!  A pub!   Upper Upnor.

A final unwelcome challenge due to a
route through a Royal Mail office.

Good Friday from Rochester to Canterbury also dawned sunny and warm, and we set off on a gigantic bridge over the Medway into the historic  town of Rochester.  We passed the castle and the cathedral in quick succession, and then rode up the interesting and ancient High Street.  Various hills led out of town past a series of big military buildings, including the Royal Engineers' Museum, with many curious types of adapted tank on show outside.

Rochester Castle

& Cathedral

Eventually we came to the coast, with expansive views over the estuary,  mudflats and distant cranes on the opposite bank.  From then on it was mostly along the coast, great views but slow going with a lot of cycle barriers to negotiate, with occasional inland or road bits, to Sittingbourne, for a late 11s stop at 12.30.  The café had just closed, but Maddie persuaded them to re-open for 12 hungry cyclists.  Jennie single-handedly fixed a puncture, demonstrating skills learned at the bike maintenance workshop.

Faversham cafe

Steve & Ann in the 'Husband Day Care Centre'

 

Apple orchards everywhere

and Oast Houses

After lunch the riding was mainly inland; very quiet roads which got increasingly undulating as we neared Canterbury.  At the top of one particularly fine hill we stopped to enjoy the view and consume Hot Cross Buns.  Then the Crab & Winkle Way bought us, very un-crabby and definitely un-wrinkly cyclists into Canterbury.   It was heaving with bank holiday crowds, so much so that some of us had to stop in a pub to wait until it was a bit quieter.

Welcome to Canterbury!

Thanks to lots of people for taking lovely photos and sharing them.

ride to Canterbury · Pete's Saturday ride · Helen's Saturday ride· Sunday ride · ride home