Wednesday, 19 July 2017
Nigel writes: My companions for tonight's ride were Seb, Camille, Ray and Will: given the growing importance of good food on these evening rides it felt appropriate that 40% of tonight's group were from France. The weather this evening was dull, hot and very humid: for much of the ride it felt as if it would start raining at any time, but fortunately it stayed dry and didn't start raining until the middle of the night.
Tonight's pub stop was in Barrington. We'd visited this about a month ago, when Ray led the ride there on a clockwise loop, setting out south and then turning west. On this occasion I decided to try an anticlockwise loop, setting out west along the Coton path and following the old St Neot's Road west before turning south towards Bourn.
After a short run south along the A1198 (which is always very quiet in the evening) we turned back east onto the lovely quiet lane that runs down towards Old Wimpole. Up until this point we had been riding on rather dull roads and it was nice to be on a country lane at last. We crossed the A603 and continued to Orwell.
We could have continued directly from Orwell to Barrington, but it was still not yet 8pm and so I took the group south to tiny Malton and on to Meldreth, stopping to admire the Meridian marker along the way.
Meridian marker near Orwell
We reached Barrington at about 8.15pm and stopped for food and drinks at The Royal Oak.
Dinner at The Royal Oak, Barrington
Camille's Octopus
Afterwards we returned back to Cambridge via Chapel Hill, Haslingfield and Barton. With a gentle tailwind this was a very fast ride back, and I arrived home at 9.45pm, having cycled 53km (33 miles).
Nigel Deakin
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GPS track (GPX).