The bridleway starts as farm track but the becomes field edge which is usually very cut up by horse traffic so we were all expecting it to be rough. It wasn't actually as bad as I feared except for the last field before the bridleway joins Moor Leys Lane which was horrendous! It looked like the previous day's Grand National had been held on it!

At Waltham we turned south heading for a lane and bridleway south of The Mars complex that we have never ridden before. This took us towards Freeby where we picked up the green lane across to Sproxton. On the early part of the green lane some of the ruts tested our "skinny" riding technique!

By the time we got to near Sproxton Ricky was starting to struggle a bit. At Saltby his tyre was going down and his bike was thrown against the fence before pumping commenced! I offered round some jelly beans to cheer him up. We carried on via Croxton and Branston and past Eaton until his tyre had gone down again. The slime in his tube had been defeated by a beast of a thorn. However it was glorious lounging in the warm sun while he fixed it.

The sections of bridleway from Branston to Goadby Marwood are a pain in that they have loads of gates in a short distance. We relayed to get through them all and then picked up The Jubilee Way to Scalford. This section has one of those daft rights of way issues where a bridleway finishes half way across a field at a parish boundary and becomes a footpath. So there are two bridleways linked by just a few hundred metres of footpath across a grassy field. We ignored this daftness (as do all the horse riders judging by the hoof prints) and road the path as we have always done.

In Scalford the warm, dry, dusty ride steered us into the beer garden of The Kings Arms. A couple of welcome pints and we eventually headed home on the road. A nice afternoon ride of around 26 miles done.