A lot of local cycling groups tend to be filled with 20-something guys doing 100-mile rides at 18mph. I had thus so far avoided any of these ...

A fellow member of the CycleChat forum, David, noticed a GPS track I'd posted from a recent ride and realised that we must be almost neighbours. It turned out that we did indeed live about 500 metres away!

We'd thus done a few 40-50 mile local rides together, and I thought it might be time to see if I could find a local group that rode sensible distances at a civilised pace. I then hatched a cunning plan ...

There's a 40plus club for cyclists who are, funnily enough, aged 40+. The local group has two weekday rides, one on a Tuesday and one on a Thursday. Aha, I thought: 40+ and free on a weekday means that most will be pensioners and thus riding at a nice gentle pace, right?

While some of their rides were quite scary distances (which should have tipped me off), they had one which was a 40-mile ride to somewhere I'd been before and knew to be reasonably flat.

The ride began at a cafe in Battlesbridge, a couple of miles from home. After introductions, a bacon sandwich and the obligatory cup of tea, the 18-strong group split into two and we set off on mostly lovely roads.

On the plus side, the average speed of the ride was exactly what I was logging on my own rides: 12mph. But my 12mph average is achieved by bombing downhill at 30mph+ and then slowing to about 5mph uphill. These guys get theirs by doing 12mph everywhere: uphill, downhill ("some of the members are at an age when they don't bounce any more"), flat, headwind, tailwind, they don't care: 12mph. I was having to work quite hard on some of the uphill stretches. Never be fooled by grey hair.

The 40-mile ride also stretched a little, with a couple of sightseeing diversions. The first was onto Wallasea Island:

Lunch was at a pub in Paglesham. Since I'd had a first course at the cafe, I opted for pudding at the pub: a rather good plum crumble. And another cup of tea, of course.

The ride back began on somewhat exposed roads, and the tailwind we'd enjoyed for the final part of the outward ride was now a headwind.

The second diversion was a ride along the coast to Southend:

We stopped at a beach-side cafe. One of the great things about longer cycle rides is you burn a lot of calories (about 4000 on this one). Time for a second pudding, then: toffee ice-cream. :-) Oh, and another cup of tea, naturally.

The ride broke up in Southend as different people lived in different directions. My GPS had a little loop to Southend and back, and I attempted to persuade it to begin the route halfway round the loop. It wasn't keen, but one of the other riders pointed us in the right direction and the GPS then reluctantly agreed to resume a route from midway.

David and I took a direct but hilly route home. I realised we were heading for about 48.5 miles total, so took a small detour to get us up to 50 miles. David reckoned this wouldn't quite get us there, so we went round an extra block just before home to finish the job:

All-in-all, a very pleasant ride.

Some of the other rides they do are a significantly longer distance (a recent one was 80 miles), but some members go to the first stop and then head back from there, making it a 40-50 miler. I shall do some of these.

All I need to do now is get over the fact that I'm joining a club based on being officially old ...