After talking this over with my sweetie (the stoker who is the Ultimate Boss, outranking even the Captain) we decided we would be delighted to the whatever people want to do. We'll likely bike over from Bedford which will add about 10 miles at each end of the day, very delightful miles too, I might add. That's an option we had discussed before and then forgotten about.

So it's just a question of timing. The metric is supposed to start at 9, the 32 miler (half metric? though they didn't call it that) starts at 11. We can leave Bedford at 9 and be there quite early, enough to meet everyone!

Addendum: I had mentioned this some time ago but I'll mention it again. I can provide some bikes to people who would like to ride but can't bring their own. All are classic/vintage, all in good shape, some are inexpensive and so there is nothing to worry about, some are mid-end robust journeymen capable of just about anything, and some are high-performance machines. All about 56-59cm with downtube friction shifters and toe clips/toe straps. I just need to know ahead of time.