Sunday, 06 April 2014
John writes: Only five of us (Tom (leader). John R, Neil, Steve and Andrew for whom this was his first ride with the group) today met at Brookside at 9am. The weather was mixed, being reasonably windy which made the outward journey arduous, mild and, for the first 20mins of the ride, wet!!
Set off through the cycleway between Kings and Trinity colleges then across The Backs and staying on the cycleway all the way to Coton where we joined the road system and into the wind!!!! through Bourn, Caxton, Gt Gransden and on into St Neots - Neal having left us to return home just short of S Neots.
We had our coffee stop at the Market Cafe in St Neots where we were joined by Richard who had cycled over from Bedford to ride with us. Just as we were leaving the cafe we were stopped by a Scotsman on a brand new high powered motorbike asking for directions back to the A1 as he was riding back up to Edinburgh today - Richard was straight over to him with map in hand!
Undoubted highlight of the journey from St Neots to Jordans Mill at Biggleswade (other than listening to Tom's creaking BB/pedal) was a wonderful sighting of a Red Kite.
Lunch spot on time at 1pm at the very busy cafe at Jordans Mill - no room to eat and drink inside so we all sat outside (lovely setting close to the Mill) to have our lunch.
Richard left us here to head back home to Bedford.
The remaining 4 of us headed back through the streets of Biggleswade where John R headed off back to Swavesey, the other 3 riders headed off for afternoon tea at the Teacake Cafe at Shepreth.
Tom was expecting the total journey to be around
65 miles and back into Cambridge I imagine around 5pm.
John Ross