11th July 2010
I found a website called http://www.goskyride.com/ and was intrigued to see if what they claimed was true.
They offered free guided bike rides across the country and all you had to do was register and turn up.
I got confirmation email of the ride I'd booked myself on. Details of where to meet, what time, names of the guides and the grading of the ride were all on the website when booking.
I booked 'The Chocolate Trail'. It was to be a 6 mile 'steady' ride around the Bournville area.
I turned up in plenty of time and cycled around the park we were due to meet in. I'd never been to this park and although only 2 miles from my house, I didn't even know it existed. It was Rowheath Park (B30 1HH).
Approaching 2pm, more and more people were turning up. There were only 20 places, but there appeared to be more than 20 people with bikes. It turns out, while most had booked their place, many (18) had just decided to turn up. The leaders (3 in total) had to turn those 18 away, as they just wouldn't be able to cope guiding 38 people around paths and roads without causing major havoc.
One of the leaders quickly went through checking bikes were road worthy. The leaders were all volunteers and locals which had planned the routes themselves.
The route was quite easy, mostly traffic free, through parks and along trails (including NCN 5 back to Kings Norton) and most pretty. I've recorded on my Garmin for future reference.
We took 2 hours to pootle around. Some people looked like they had never been on a bike before, while others forgot the highway code and were a right pain.
On the whole, the event was organised very well, I really enjoyed it and wished I had more time to do further rides this year. Next year, I hope to become a volunteer.
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