Rapha London Co. Ride: Essex

If you are not familiar to the county of Essex, with its rolling landscape, oak trees, Kestrels, boy racers in lowered Hondas and girls with too much fake-tan lotion, then you'd do far worse than to acquaint yourself on a ride north-east out of London, through the tranquil suburbs of Leyton, Chigwell and over towards Epping Forest and beyond.

No over-extended sentence can do the region justice, and for a handful of us at Rapha, this is our local riding manor. On Wednesday the London office downed-tools, as they say, and made a trip eastwards from Newington Green, Islington, for a gentle 50kms to the Leather Bottle in Ingatestone ("gentle" for the most part anyway). Four punctures and a coke stop later we were eating as much as the flustered pub staff could manage to cook for 40 plus cyclists. Thanks to everyone who rode out, especially Ben Brown for organising (geezer). The Essex County motto is "many minds, one heart", without being overly sentimental, I'll drink to that.