A cool breeze coupled with the continuing sunshine produced perfect cycling weather for our first beach ride of the summer. Our youngest rider, Paul Twydell, was certainly dressed for the occasion with his smart new cycling top and shorts: the passers-by at Totnes Plains had to stop and stare before they continued with their business.

The first incident of the day occurred when Hazel took the wrong road from Harbertonford despite being in the middle of a large group. Everyone else turned right, but when Hazel got to the junction the riders in front of her must have just gone out of sight around the corner, so she went straight on along the main road. She wasn't missed until we got to the top of the hill, by which time Hazel had returned to the village, found us gone and set off again to try to locate us. Michael did his best to find her, but he had no means of knowing which track she had explored so the search proved useless. (Younger members who find themselves in this situation should always wait at the place where they last saw the club.)

We continued through to Chillington, where the first part of our lunch was consumed in the spacious grassy park. Then came the second incident: Dave and Roger set off on their own up the hill in advance of the other members, were surprised when we didn't follow shortly afterwards, decided they must have gone wrong and set off for the beach on their own. Ten minutes later they were missed at the next junction. John went back to the lunch spot to try to find them while the rest continued along a delightful wooded valley to the beach, only to find the two cyclists sunning themselves on a rock, apparently unaware of the confusion they had caused!

A glorious 1½ hours were spent here, lapping up the sunshine, swimming and enjoying the remainder of our lunch. To our amazement, Hazel turned up while we were there. She had managed to purchase a suitable map, locate Lannacombe Beach on it and find her way there via Kingsbridge - and all this took just 15 minutes longer than our route!

A coastal path exit was considered and then dismissed in favour of the more direct lane route to Torcross. There was time to enjoy the magnificent views of Slapton Ley before the final descent to the Sea Shanty cafe for welcome refreshments. The final push homewards through Strete brought us to Forces Cross, where we obtained our usual discounts and were invited to sample her new brand of additive-free fizzy fruit drinks - very tasty I might add.

We hope that members and their families were not too concerned about the very late return (about 8.45) from this ride, in view of the long daylight hours and the unusual coincidence of fine weather and our beach ride.