Sunday, 07 November 2010
Now that it's November, our Sunday all-day rides now start at 9.30am. It was bright and sunny when I rode across town to Brookside, where I found Gareth, Simon FM and Tom waiting for the ride to start. Gareth was our leader today. He pointed out that with the 9.30am start we had only 90 minutes to get to the coffee stop in Reed, so we needed to get a move on.
Gareth led us south out of Cambridge to Trumpington where we took the right turn onto Hauxton Road. This is quite a busy road, so when we reached the junction with the park and ride site we turned right and joined the narrow, but just about usable, shared-use path. We stayed on this path across the M11 slip roads and all the way to Harston, where we turned left onto the B1368 to Newton. As we rode along we felt a few drops of rain but they came to nothing. Indeed the sun came back out again and it remained bright and sunny for the rest of the day.
Just beyond Newton we turned left to Thriplow from where, unusually, we dropped down to the A505. We rode along the A505 for about half a mile befroe turning south towards Chrishall Grange and the long climb to Heydon. After climbing further to Great Chishill we dropped back to Barley, passing the windmill on the way.
At Barley we picked up the B1368 once more for the short climb to Barkway. A final climb past the transmitters brought us to Reed, where we stopped for coffee at the Silver Ball Cafe.
Already at the cafe were six other club members, making a total of ten at coffee. I ordered a mug of coffee and a £2.50 plate of beans and toast.
After coffee I returned to Cambridge with Simon, leaving Gareth, Tom and now Doug to continue to Lunch in Ardley. The others returned back home separately.
I passed the GPS tracker to Gareth for the rest of the day ride, to Lunch in Ardeley and then back north to Hauxton, arriving at the village hall at about 4pm. I was already there getting ready for the AGM.
The climb to Wood End (12:38, just before lunch) (Photo: Gareth Rees)
The road from Buckland to Barkway, about 14:30 (Photo: Gareth Rees)
After a splendid tea served by Tina and Eva we held our AGM at 5pm. This finished at 7pm after which I returned back to Cambridge, carrying the GPS once again. It was now not only dark but due to the clear skies it was also quite cold, and I was glad to get back home and into the warm.
View this GPS track on a larger map
Photos 3 and 4 by Gareth Rees. Licence: Creative Commons CC-BY-SA v2.0