37.7 Miles, Sunday Morning

The Bikes

Another ride today, 37.7 miles in total around parts of Kent but this ride was a little different – I had company.

I friend joined me for this ride.  We’ve been talking about setting up semi-regular rides and this was our first one.  I normally ride alone but today was fun.  He is fitter than me so he was powering up the hills and leaving me struggling behind in first gear!  To add insult to injury, he was even cycling back down the hills to see where I was!  🙂

We left just before 9am and headed up the Medway valley through Wouldham, Burham, Eccles and Aylesford before crossing the M20 motorway travelling through some of the back roads of Maidstone.  Just before Bearsted we turned North and again crossed the motorway heading towards Detling.

Passing through Detling, we cycled on single lane country roads towards Thurnham and we were overtaken by some road cyclists, groups of four or more, who appeared to be part of a cycling club.  They shot by with their more suitable gearing and slick tyres and a cheery shout of “Morning!”.

The Black Horse Inn

We stopped for a snack in Thurnham, near the Black Horse Inn and Thurnham Keep – good food at the Black Horse, spent many a long evening in there eating good food and drinking great wine.  The odometer read 13.3 miles at this point, 1h23m and an average speed of 10mph.

From that point, we cycled down into Hollingbourne before we hit the biggest hill of the day.  In 0.79 miles we climbed 332.5 ft – it was a nasty hill, I almost gave up but I put my head down and pushed through the pain barrier.

The next place we stopped was a small village called Bredgar where we grabbed a Mars Bar and a Coke from the local Farm Shop (CTC cyclists welcome!) before sitting down by the duck pond.  Nice village with some nice houses – worth a look if you’re passing.

A House In Bredgar

Next stop was at Borden for a few photos of the church  before head down again and cycling back towards the Medway Towns.  Hempstead was our entry point where my friend broke off as we passed his house – he’d already cycled to my house in the morning so we ended up doing the same distance.  Then it was cycling alone back to my house.

A good ride.  It wasn’t sunny, but it was relatively warm.  No rain, which was great as earlier in the week they had forecast heavy rain.

More photos from the ride over on Flickr (click here).

The Route - 37.7 Miles, shown in yellow

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