Wednesday, 04 January 2012
Nigel writes: This was intended to be a moonlit ride, but the sky was overcast and the moon was nowhere to be seen. The temperature was very mild but quite windy, and I wasn't surprised to find that the only person who turned up for this evening's ride was Nick J, who had suggested these monthly winter rides in the first place.
I suggested a loop through the fens, so we set off east out of Cambridge along the river and followed NCR 51 through Quy, Bottisham, Swaffham Bulbeck and Swaffham Prior to Burwell. With a strong tailwind we were positively blown along.
On the edge of Burwell I saw a cycle route sign "Lodes Way (11)" and decided to follow it along a road that I had never ridden along before. This took us north into Burwell Fen along a very bumpy farm road to meet the Lodes Way after about a mile. We then turned west for the journey back to Cambridge.
The ride back along empty fen roads and paths was directly into the wind, which was growing in intensity and noisy enough to make conversation impossible.
When we reached Lode we joined the B1102 to Quy where we stopped at the White Swan. We were just about the only customers in the pub but we were made very welcome and the food and drink were both quite good. I'd happily recommend this for a future visit.
Afterwards we returned back to Cambridge via Fen Ditton. We were again riding directly into the wind which was by now blowing quite a gale and it was a relief that we did not have very far to go. I was home just after 10pm, having cycled
29 miles.
View this GPS track on a larger map