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@Ludd
Top day!
Saturday: the hotel in Sandown was truly awful, and the whole town seemed to have shut down by the time we arrived at about 8 on the Saturday evening. Cod & chips and guinness on the beach followed by hardly any sleep.
Sunday: poached egg on toast, coffee. Assembled the bikes. Ludd, Mrs Ludd and Luddlet #2 head off to the Alverstone checkpoint. Half way there, Ludd remembers he's left the entry forms at the hotel. Ludd rides back, collects them and races back to Alverstone where it turns out that folk have been admiring Luddlet #2's dinky little Orbit America with 650c wheels, cool fir wheelset, crazy high stem and riser bars and campag groupset. I spied a couple of fixed riders there, but no faces I recognised off here, and no hats or jerseys I recognised, so I didn't shout at anyone.
We set off on the short route at about 10. Little egrets, buzzards, butterflies, highland cows, sunshine, loads of happy cyclists, gravel, sand. Merry banter on the chain ferry at Cowes. Mrs Ludd battled valiantly with the hills on her Pashley Provence which was suffering gear problems - I managed a provisional fettle to give access to the lowest of the five gears.
At Kite Hill we asked ourselves why we hadn't taken the camping option. We also admired the cheek(s) of the chap riding in a mankini to raise funds for SANDS charity (stillbirth and neo-natal death society, which provides support for families affected). Cake.
We paused for an hour or so at the Wishing Well pub just before Nettlestone - couldn't work out why the pub wasn't full of cyclists as we sat out on the terrace eating fish cakes and chips and sweet chilli sauce and slurping our pints of HSB.
Coffee and back on the road. St Helens, Bembridge and Brading were beautiful to ride through and we were, all too soon, back at Alverstone, collecting our certificates. It was Luddlet #2's longest ever ride (by a factor of more than 2) and probably also Mrs Ludd's longest ever ride. They'd had a brilliant day and had enjoyed chatting to other riders and being part of a collective celebration of bike riding.