I did a recce of the route out to Brookwood on Sunday morning.
The Museum itself is easy enough to get to, but the bike parking consists of four bike hoops out the front of the shop (i.e. before you get inside the Museum). I think we might be able to ask them for a better parking place if we approach them politely.
There is a group discount for 15 or more people, but you have to buy the tickets in advance. I'm not sure how we can manage this and they don't give the amount of discount, so I'm not sure if it's worth going down this route.
A few observations; the first is that if we follow this route:
https://cycle.travel/map/journey/89691 it's a very urban ride along quite busy roads. We won't have any opportunity to talk to each other and we'll basically be "in traffic" for almost the whole route.
The road conditions were good and the junctions are reasonably straightforward. I only got lost twice!
There are some temporary roadworks just near to the Museum, but they may well be gone by the time we get there.
I took a different route back, following the Thames path from Hampton Court to Kingston before turning onto back roads. This was a lot better, but I still didn't really enjoy the back roads, although there was next to no traffic.
Even at lunchtime on a sunny Sunday afternoon, the route along the river was glorious, I could relax and look at the view. I suspect that in the opposite direction and much earlier it would be even less busy. I might try the alternate route this weekend.
So, what do the panel think?
Should we take the urban route there and the pootling country route back?
Or the country route in both directions, go a bit slower and have the opportunity to talk to each other?
It's really about what type of ride we are trying to have.