My annual Surrey Hills led ride started with a meet-up and coffee in Hampton Hill (not a real hill) with Alfie and Iain. We made our way to the start (Cobham car park) and met with the others, Toby and Jonathan. Introductions and a bit of chat, then we set off. Lots of standing water after the deluge last night, and we had to ford a few lakes. Sometimes you could freewheel through the whole lake and sometimes you needed to pedal and get your feet wet. Also massive amounts of detritus on the roads (mud, gravel, etc) which had been washed onto them in the night. Beautiful sunny day and beautiful route, but as it turned out much tougher than any of us had imagined. I normally prove my routes beforehand but had not had time or opportunity to do so this time. There were no big hills but it was constant up-and-down. Stopped after the first proper hill (Staple Lane) for a cheeky coffee 9 miles in (there's a mobile cafe there), then the next stop was lunch at The King's Head in Holmbury St Mary. And very nice it was too - the food, drink and the pub. I'll revisit soon. After lunch it took a while for our legs to start working, but a warm day helped to get us going. I think most people's fastest times were recorded barrelling down Coldharbour Lane off Leith Hill into Dorking, despite a queue of cars in front of us. No mechanicals but my rear mech started playing up, to the extent that I had to abandon using my three lowest gears for fear of catastrophic failure. This made things tricky, as my strategy had been to spin low gears up hills to keep the pressure off the cracked rib. Now I had to run a balancing act between the two conflicting requirements, with the bike's gears usually holding sway if the gradient got too steep. Back at Cobham we said our goodbyes and so on, then Iain, Alfie and I had a coffee before returning to Hampton Hill via a route I often use but they didn't know about. It turned out to be the easiest way back, and possibly nicest due to the quiet roads. Once you are past the fairly grotty road by Notre Dame School you head through a very quiet private village (Whiteley), then on to the long straight road running into Hersham - and with the prevailing wind behind you can barrel along at high speed, and carry this on up into Molesey - a great blast to end the day. Then a nice potter through Bushy Park and finally our goodbyes and home. A great day in great company, pretty countryside and warm sunshine. But next time I really must pick a flatter route. And prove it too!