Poor Ian had been waiting at the Newton start for nearly forty minutes by the time we arrived, which meant that there was very little time to meet the 2.15 Marldon deadline. When we finally arrived at 2.23 we were amazed to discover that a rather impetuous Philip had decided to leave on time with the afternoon riders rather than wait for us. He wasn't especially popular.

After a detour through Berry Pomeroy the two groups eventually met as planned at the Totnes pick-up. And here to greet us was a Herald Express photographer, waiting for a photograph of the assembled throng to go with a story he was doing for his paper.

And so finally the afternoon ride got underway. There was a long climb along the road route to Ashprington, aggravated by the presence of some more dogs who were clearly well out of control, and then a short descent to the village square. From here the Sharpham Drive track was followed all the way back to Totnes, complete with stiles, gates, steep fields, woods, meadows and (in Michael Banks' case) punctures. It was all good fun, of course, finishing the day with a good deal of variety.