Pictures taken on Branch ride-outs
A group of our members rode together on the annual Reading Toy Run (see here for details). We met up about half a mile away and then rode together to the start point where we joined up with hundreds of other bikers, many in fancy dress with decorated bikes, for the ride from Reading to Wokingham where we dropped off toys to Barnado’s.
With temperatures below freezing as we got up in the morning and around 1 degree C when I left the house, I was not sure how many people would be turning up for our Sunday ride-out. However, six hardy bikers shrugged off the freezing conditions and met up at Cobbs Farm. The temperature had risen to a cool 2 degrees as we set off for the Court Hill centre near Wantage. The roads were mercifully dry, so we did not encounter any ice and arrived for coffee and cakes at the Court Hill centre with nothing more amiss than freezing hands and feet.
On a bright, but cold morning, we set off from Three Mile Cross on a short ride for breakfast at the Iron Bull Inn near Old Basing. We were then warmed up enough to ride on to Loomies at West Meon where we saw an extraordinary bathtub bike decked out in poppies. Despite one member going to the wrong start point and another getting lost on the way to Loomies, we all managed to make it to both cafes for another enjoyable Sunday out.
Four members went on a mid-week ride to The Grange near in Saunderton, West Wycombe.
The weather forecast showed it would be dry when ten bikes and their riders gathered at Cobbs farm for our planned ride to the Artyard Cafe in Enstone in Oxfordshire. As we got ready to go it started to rain heavily. So we went in the cafe for half and hour until it stopped. After that the weather was dry although for the start of the ride the roads were wet.
With the delay and as the Artyard is quite a long run, we had quick stop at the garden centre in Bampton. A couple of riders decided to end the ride there while the rest pushed on to the Artyard.
A short ride to Popham Airfield on a Sunday morning.
We worried more about getting fuel than the weather for our ride to the Weald and Downland Living Museum near Chichester. Five of us met up with various levels of fuel and anxiety about making it there and back. Luckily, we rode past a garage with fuel and no queues, so two of us filled up. Some others managed to find some fuel at the end of the ride. The weather shone for us apart from a very short shower that caught some people just before they got home. The cafe at the Weald museum was a beautiful place for a bacon sandwich and coffee.
The forecast said it was a going to be wet, and it certainly looked that way first thing in the morning, so we had a low turnout for our ride to the Leckford estate.
But it had stopped raining before we started the ride, and after half and hour we were on dry roads and had a great ride to the Leckford Estate in Hampshire. When we arrived there it was warm and the sun was shining and we enjoyed a late breakfast at the cafe there before our ride home.
It just shows, you should not let the weather forecast put you off riding your bike.
We rode to the legendary Thruxton race track and airfield and ordered a late breakfast/early lunch from the Jackeroo cafe there and sat by the race track to eat it. Before departing we lined up by the Thruxton sign at the entrance to take some photos of the riders with their bikes and then just the bikes.
Thruxton is a great place to ride to when there isn’t a race on and we have ridden there before. Check out this video here of a Branch ride there we did in 2020.
