Wednesday, 09 November 2011
Nigel writes: Although our regular Wednesday evening rides have officially finished for the winter, there's clearly still a demand from members for a mid-week post-work ride and pub stop. Tonight's ride was the initiative of Nick J, who last night sent an email to the members' email list suggesting that tonight, with almost a full moon, might be a good evening for an informal ride after work. I agreed, and turned up at Brookside at 6.30pm to find that I was one of six riders ready for a short evening ride into the darkness: Nick, Gareth, Jacob, Rob, Ian D and me. The weather was dry, clear and mild, with only a slight breeze from the south.
We had a short discussion to agree on a route and decided to head south through the Shelfords to Whittlesford before turning back north to Newton. There we would resist the temptation to stop at the Queen's Head and instead turn south to Thriplow and Fowlmere. From there we would turn back north, cross over the A10 to Shepreth and on to Barrington. A climb of Chapel Hill to Haslingfield would allow us to arrive at the White Horse in Barton before the kitchen closed.
I think we were all in the mood for a fast ride so we took the loop at a relatively fast pace with Gareth usually at the front. Nick and Jacob were usually just behind, with their bright front lights flooding the road ahead with illumination and making it easy to see the way ahead.
The combination of moonlight, quiet roads, mild weather and a nice fast pace made tonights ride much more enjoyable than might have been expected given that it was completely dark.
Haslingfield ChurchBroken SpokeAs we passed Haslingfield Church Nick stopped with a broken spoke. Fortunately he was able to perform some impromptu wheel balancing and we were able to continue to the White Horse in Barton in time to order both food and drink. Afterwards we returned back to Cambridge via Coton. I was home at about 9.30pm, having cycled just under
30 miles.
View this GPS track on a larger map
1 comments from old website
Thursday 10th Nov 2011 at 9.12am
This sounds and looks lovely. I was at work until almost 8 pm last night - much less exciting! Glad you had a good ride... :)