Our route had us looping up and round Puttenham Common towards Tilford, then turning south to start the long climb over the sandy common ground to the Devils Punchbowl and our tea stop. Unfortunately, en route, the race ring in Dave's freehub finally got tired of acting as the go between in the fight between his legs and rear tyre, let go and started spinning freely in the hub under any power.
With quite some climbing still to go and no drive, Dave handed over navigation duties to a worrying combination of Graham (GPS) and I (paper map) and set off to shortcut back to the start. We pressed on with the initially easy navigation of 'follow the power lines until you run out of uphill' and soon made it to the cafe. We'd not long sat down with cake and tea before Dave showed up again- on road he'd managed gentle pedaling and made good time to his car, then come and met us at the stop.
Once on the way back Graham and I discovered our navigational harmony was not quite the bliss we'd thought it was as his GPS route tried to take us one way and the map route the other. Conscious of the fact that we were already running short of time. we took the shorter of the two!
Ockley Common slowed us down a little more as vaguely remembered turnings and GPS hints came together with 'this sandy corner by the trees looks the same as all the others', but we made it through and finished with a road dash for the finish.
Thanks for a well planned route Dave, sorry you couldn't finish it and sorry to hear that your keyboard has conveniently broken too so you can't write a report!
Mat
PS. Dave is busy having fun and politely asked if I would write a report for him. Any similarities in the above account with any keyboards he may own, dead or alive, are entirely coincidental.