26th December 2009

Had to set my alarm clock to be sure to make the 8am start for the cycle club boxing day ride.

I was up at 6:30 and finished sorting stuff out before setting of at 7:50 for the short ride to the cemetery gates for the start.

I decided to take the Merida to help reduce the chance of being left behind! I need not have worried, the ride set of at a pleasant pace, one of my water bottles made a leap for freedom, I stopped, picked it up and caught up with the group with very little difficulty.

The ride covered more or less the same route towards Amesbury that I had taken a few weeks ago to Stonehenge.

Rob was on a fixie and finding the hills a bit of a grind, so when Andy had a puncture at Great Wishford David and myself continued on with him, the idea was that it would give him a chance and the rest of the group would catch us up.

At around Boyton a toffee nosed plum swallowing upper class knob took excpetion to us cycling along the road and started having a go at us, I think he was a little taken aback when we bothered to stop and talk to him nicely! (I am not a fan of the so called upper class!)

Unfortunately at Wylye we turned right when we should have gone straight on and the group unbeknown to us had overtaken us, we cycled on slowly to Sutton Veny hoping they would catch up with us (But obviously they never would!), David stopped and waited for them and I continued on to Imber with Rob, David had given us precise instructions on the way forward, apparently we couldn't get it wrong. It was cycle straight on to Warminster and at a T-junction or Mini Roundabout turn right onto Imber Road.

We got it wrong! When we got to central Warminster we stopped and asked a Taxi driver who directed us to turn around and take the left at the top of the hill. (Finally we were on Imber Road)

For those of you that don't know Imber Village was taken over by the MOD during the second world war, all of the residents were evicted, the Village is re-opened to the public over Christmas and the new year every year.


Considering that the road isn't normally used it was in amazing condition

I was totally gob-smacked by the burnt out tanks that were left strategically all over the place, I didn't take a picture as it didn't seem the right thing to do...

As we dropped down the hill towards the village the road became completely frozen.

Most of the village appears to be new built shells for army training...




The Church and the Baptist chapel however are original and well protected.

David had contacted Andy by phone and had found out that they were about 5 miles ahead of us, David had also caught us up.

We continued on to the A360 and Rob decided to go a more direct route to Devizes and Chippenham, I continued on with David sticking to the route.

When we got to the A342 I also decided to take a more direct route home (The ride had taken a lot longer than I expected and I really don't like cycling from Calne to Chippenham, the road is in really bad condition.

As I cycle back past the Cemetery some of the guys were still packing up into their cars, apparently they were only a minute or two ahead of me, not to bad considering I had only shave 4 miles of the route.

The Garmin had the ride as 86.08 miles in 5 hours 30 minutes with an average speed of 14.7 mph, route here...

Hmmmm my bike is now minging again, will have to spend some quality time cleaning them ALL up now...