South Bucks Midweek Cycling Newsletter - February 2026
South Bucks Midweek Cycling Newsletter - February 2026
I hope you had a good Christmas without putting on too much weight! The new year weather has not been very cycling-friendly so far, but at least the day light hours are already lengthening.
If this doesn't appear correctly, you can view it on our page of the Cycling UK website.
Feel free to share pictures of your exploits on our Facebook page or send them to me for our photo album.
Thinking of joining a ride for the first time? We have a helpful page on our website which should answer most of your questions, but if you want advice please get in contact.
If you spot any interesting articles, pub or cafe changes, or want to contribute your observations, please let me know.
Happy New Year,
Peter Robinson
Secretary, South Bucks Midweek Cycling
Berkhamsted CC Spring Classic
Entries are now open for the Berkhamsted CC Spring Classic, and they would be pleased to see you on the start line at Church Farm Cafe, Aldbury on 22nd March. This is part of a Spring Classics Series of Reliability Rides run by a number of local clubs. You can find details and entry for all of them here.
The Cycling UK email system is broken
The Cycling UK email system that I use to send out Newsletters, Welcome emails and information about events and holidays is no longer being updated with new members.
When you joined Cycling UK, or the CTC as it used to be, you were allocated to a local group, based on your postcode. The South Bucks Midweek area stretches from Aylesbury to Gerrards Cross and Marlow, including postcodes HP1 to HP27 and SL0 to SL9.
The email system that I use, is Cycling UK’s email list of all the members in our postcode area, until now. Cycling UK have created a new website and with it a new membership database to which only they have access. The old email list still exists for now, but new members are not being added to it and any email address changes notified to Cycling UK are not being updated.
To my mind, communication is vital to building and maintaining a member group, so I find it disappointing that Cycling UK has cut us off from new members in this way.
Newsletters and event information will therefore only reach a decreasing number of existing members, who don't change their email address. I think this is unacceptable and if you agree, I suggest that you write to Cycling UK and make your feelings known.
Part of Marsh Lane Stoke Mandeville is open
Marsh Lane is now open from the railway crossing to the new road, which links the A4010 to Lower Road, Stoke Mandeville. The part of Marsh Lane from Stoke Mandeville village, which will be crossed by HS2 remains closed, permanently as far as I know.
If you want to read all about it you can find it here on the Buckinghamshire Council website.
The bridge deck for the part of the link road between Wendover Road, Aylesbury and Lower Road, Stoke Mandeville was lifted into place over the Christmas period, by a very tall crane, reportedly the largest in Europe.
Salisbury Holiday update
Those of you who have registered your interest in this five night holiday in Salisbury from 17th to 22nd May 2026 should have received an automatic acknowledgement. If you haven't seen it, it may be in your Junk/Spam folder.
We have reached capacity now, but the holiday is some way off, so places may become available. If you wish to express an interest and join the waiting list here is the booking form.
ICE tags available for only £2!
We have a stock of tags to stick on your helmet or bike containing In-Case-of-Emergency (ICE) information, which can include your ID, emergency phone numbers, blood group, allergies or any other medical information. The tags are weatherproof and provide easy access to information in case of an accident or medical emergency. Cycling UK is offering something similar, but more expensive, and more complicated as it involves scanning the tag and looking up the information on the internet. I assume a mobile phone signal would be needed and that is not always available. Contact me to get yours for only £2 whiles stocks last!
Royal British Legion Fundraising Events
The Royal British Legion have fundraising events in 2026 in Kent, Shropshire, The Somme and Paris. You can find out more here.
Cafe Shabbs, Shabbington
Ray Bennett let me know that Café Shabbs is a Wednesday morning coffee session held at St Mary Magdalene Church in Shabbington, HP18 9HQ. Running from 10:30 am to midday, it provides tea, coffee, and homemade cake for a modest donation. They may prefer to know if a group is coming; the phone number is 01844 338839 according to the highly reliable and always up to date internet.
Wendover Road, Aylesbury closed for a week!
If you live in the south of the county, you may be thinking "so what", but it will have a major impact around Aylesbury with traffic diverted on to routes that are already very congested.
Wendover Road, Aylesbury will be closed 24/7 from 06:00 on Saturday 14th February to 18:00 on Sunday 22nd February for the completion of the Hampden Hall roundabout on the A413. This is where the South East Aylesbury Link Road (SEALR) will link the A413 with Lower Road, Stoke Mandeville and the Stoke Mandeville Relief Road, which is open and shown on Google Maps. It will also be an entry point into the new and huge Hampden Fields housing development.
Fortunately the diversion for cyclists is much easier than for motorists as we can use the short tunnel under the railway at the bottom of Elm Farm Road through Stoke Mandeville Stadium to Lower Road Stoke Mandeville, but watch out for angry frustrated motorists!
Update the maps on your Garmin GPS
There are many new housing estates being built and changes to the road network. You may find that the maps on your Garmin need updating. This applies also to other devices but my experience is only with Garmin. If you bought your Garmin with maps pre-loaded, you should be able to get updates to them from Garmin via Garmin Express, but this has not worked for me. My Garmin Edge 830 originally had maps of Western Europe installed, but when I tried to update them via Garmin Express, there was insufficient memory in my Garmin to add the new map image file. I guess it leaves the old one in place in case the update fails. It suggested that I could update a smaller area, which I was happy to do, but then told me I could only change the map area if my maps were up to date!
The maps used by Garmin are from Open Street Map (OSM) and can be downloaded from OSM. The OSM download sites have been run by volunteers and have changed over the years, but I used this one BBBike.org recently. Their instructions are detailed and cover many different systems but just follow the Garmin part. You have to define the map area and give your email address. They send you an email when the extract is ready. It comes in a zip file which you have to extract. You file you need is the .img file.
If you buy a Garmin with maps for Europe but then want to use it in in another part of the world, you can do so by using OSM maps.
Connect your Garmin GPS to a computer via a USB cable. After an minute and a few bleeps you should be able to see the file structure on your Garmin. Within the Garmin folder, there are lots of folders called "Activities", "Courses", "New Files" etc and if you scroll down, amongst the files at the bottom will be a file called gmapsupp.img, which will be large, probably 1 to 5 GB. This is the map image file which needs updating. On newer Garmins, there can be more than one .img file present. If you want to disable a map without removing it at first, you can change its name to gmapsupp.old. I have the UK map at about 1GB and Portugal as gmapsupp_Portugal.img at about 0.5GB.
Good luck!
Impressive Cycling Route Library
David Gregory drew this route library by Goring Gap Cycling group to the attention of the committee. It is an impressive piece of work and clearly a labour of love. It is well worth looking at and there could be some useful pub and cafe suggestions within. Given the way that cafes come and go and pubs mostly go, maintaining it would also be a major task though. There is a good looking route from Goring to Portsmouth for the ferries.
The possible benefits of a route library is a topic that comes up periodically within the committee, but it could be a lot of work so its purpose needs to be clear and of course there needs to be someone willing and able to do it. Feel free to let the committee know your thoughts by contacting me.
Order your South Bucks Midweek kit
If you want to buy South Bucks Midweek kit, contact me and when we meet the minimum five items requirement , we can place an order.
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