Rob 'gets the bird' at The Departure Lounge
On Sunday February 18th the call for riders to 'head to The Departure Lounge' Alton, was answered by 12 enthusiastic West London members on our 5th run out of the year.
Our meeting place was The Hogs Back
As you can tell from the colour of the clouds in this pic the weather forecast was insistent that the latest pulses of heavy rain would take most of the morning to clear, so we (wisely) delayed our start time. The Hogs Back Cafe on the A31 is an excellent meeting place when heading into Hampshire. Both a safe and scenic venue on the North Downs with views of The Shard some 40 miles away - on a clearer day!
The Hog's Back is a hilly ridge, part of the North Downs in Surrey, England. It runs between Farnham in the west and Guildford in the east. The road along the Hog's Back is ancient, since its raised position offered travellers a vantage point and also kept them above the thick ancient woodland of the valleys on either side. It was part of the ancient ridgeway which runs from Wiltshire down to the east coast of Kent.
We successfully dodged the deluge then navigated the resultant floods.
Altogether, an impressive turn out with Bill, Dan, Steve C, Jeff, Graham, Gary and Cindy keen to get out for a ride. And Michael was happy to travel some distance to the meeting place and Rob and Fi were their usual enthusiastic selves.
Breakfasts were served up quickly...
...and disappeared even quicker -
but there was time for another cuppa
A flat battery on Jon's bike meant Jude and he went two up on the CB 500 which doesn't have a Sat Nav mount. As Jon was leading, Jude inventively, cable-tied the Tom Tom to the handlebars. And with no charging unit the battery was always destined to run out- but using his innate navigation skills 😉 we arrived precisely on time.
Soon it was time to depart The Departure Lounge
On the way home Rob couldn't evade a kamikaze pigeon which exploded into him on the way home. Rider was unhurt... but not the pigeon - that got the bird!
