Six riders set off from the aerodrome led by Pete T for one of our favourite local circuits. It takes in Rusper then Leith Hill via Broomeshall Lane, Ranmore via White Down Lane and Boxhill up the zig zags before returning home down Little Switzerland, over Cardiac and back along Old School Lane through Brockham and Betchworth.

We clocked 50 miles at an average of 16.1mph and 3,500 feet of ascent.

This was a perfect club ride: well matched group, good pace, beautiful cycling conditions, no mechanicals and a good tea stop at the newly done up NT café at the top of Boxhill (though we did have to avoid eye contact in the queue when Tom, having sprinted up the zig zags, took tea orders for the whole group).

We met a few riders from G5/G6 up there too which was nice.

Two scary moments – one when there was a shoot with rather a lot of guns going on close to the road as we descended through Little Switzerland and the other when we met a large peloton head-on at speed coming the other way round the blind corner from Pixham Lane onto the A24 cycle track.

Rob was showing all but Tom a clean set of heels up the hills on his return to G4 and Damien and Andre were riding strongly too. Nobody was suggesting jumping down to the bottom of White Down and doing it again though!

Charles H