A late November birthday is the prime time for an annual 200km+ group ride. The usually grim weather adds to the adventure, the ride is bookended by sunrise and sunset (if the weather lets us see them) and people aren't bound by their race seasons or coaches.
My first ride was in 2019, for my 19th. I'm still not sure how I convinced everyone to join the 250km day out, I think it was all of our longest rides at that point. But it's a day we regularly talk about; the pit stop in an M&S all stuffing Percy Pigs in our pockets to the pitch black torrential rain as we sprinted to make the ferry home. Legendary.
Covid stopped play for group rides for a couple years, but we returned in 2022 with an epic ride over to Box Hill. The day was slightly blunted by mechanicals, but a massive shift out nonetheless.
Our latest adventure was a slightly friendlier 210km, heading north west towards Longleat via Gold Hill. As with 2019, our ride finished with a sprint home as the rain began to fall just a few hours from the end.