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: Badminton Sprogs and The Skelton Festival, Diss, Norfolk - 1st May 2004

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A Lenham butcher, off Church Square

A Lenham butcher, off Church Square

St. Mary's Church, Lenham

Scene-setting around Lenham, in the churchyard

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

We head off to the next-door Red Lion

The Boy Phil scopes a menu out

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 at Tenterden

The Boy Phil and Pippa in The Vine, Tenterden

Jill, Spam and Alan

Spammy and Alan in the Vine Inn

Apple checks instructions for the next section

Classic Kentish Oast Houses at Sissinghurst

An old barn at Sissinghurst

DH pokes about in the old barn

A Kent garden in Sissinghurst

A curious octagonal summer house 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 an 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 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 does some sort of 'Adam and the Ants' thing

Apple's surprised again