Scene-setting around Lenham, in the churchyard
The BSCC Annual Bike Ride, Lenham, Kent - 8th May 2004
The pub cycle team decamps for its annual trip away somewhere, which this year is courtesy of Apple and Pippa who sort out a 42-mile route starting in Lenham at the Dog and Bear Hotel - complete with strangely-miserable staff - and going to Smarden, Tenterden, Sissinghurst and back to Smarden, with a return to Lenham via a staggeringly-steep hill that's around seven miles long. The weather was slightly gloomy, but at least it wasn't the torrential rain that persisted for all of the previous night and right up until breakfast. However, the scenery was impressive, the villages were picturesque and the beer was good.
next album: A Trip Around Leeds Castle, Maidstone, Kent - 9th May 2004
previous album: The BBs Recording Session, Badminton and the Skelton Festival, Diss and Eye, Suffolk - 25th April 2004
A nice little row of cottages
Lenham restaurants
Our base - the Dog and Bear Hotel
Gov and Wavy
We look out over the market square/car park
We head off to the next-door Red Lion
The Boy Phil scopes a menu out
Back in The Bear, we play the world's most expensive Stick Game
Sophie from Up North cues up
Sophie and DH
Wavy gets the stick in
Spammy looks up
Nosher in some sort of Beatles jacket
Marc does a sideways v-sign
Alan's got a hot chip
Apple looks perpetually surprised
Marc looks glum
At the bar
Spam and Colin share a joke
The Boy Phil and Gov
Nosher and The Boy Phil
Next morning, we gets the bikes ready
Gov's got a parrot hat on
The Sagas get their bikes sorted
We stop off at the Smarden Bell
Bikes in the car park of the Bell, Smarden
A group photo outside the pub, which is closed
Picturesque houses of Smarden
Looking up to the church
The bikes get going again
Just outside the half-way point, and lunch, at Tenterden
The Boy Phil and Pippa in The Vines, Tenterden
Jill, Spam and Alan
Spammy and Alan in the Vines
Apple checks the instructions for the next section of the ride
Classic Kentish Oast Houses at Sissinghurst
A Kent garden in Sissinghurst
A curious octagonal summer house perched on the river
Dh checks his phone
DH goes a bit off road
Back at the Smarden Bell, which is now open
Jill, Alan and Spam
Bill gets his legs out to show off some sort of insect bite
Gov shows off a scar
DH lights a fag
Pippa and Apple check the property pages
The Boy Phil and Bill read a 'newspaper'
A misty Kent view, half way up the 'Hill of Death'
Gov pretends to be a traffic rozzer on a bridge over the M20
DH ponders the insanity of modern life
Jill, Colin and Pippa at dinner
Marc has a nap on Bill's shoulder
Carolyn and Apple
Wavy has some sort of 'Adam and the Ants' thing going on
Apple's surprised again
Hint: you can use the left and right cursor keys to navigate between albums, and between photos when in the photo viewer
.
Scene-setting around Lenham, in the churchyard
.