Sunday, 27 March 2016
John writes: Today was Easter Sunday and so I was expecting most riders to be at home with families or in church, so it was good to still find at Brookside Rupert, Sheila, Keith, Susan and Paul.
I warned the small group that having already experienced very strong blustery conditions on the ride from home in Swavesey that with us going back a similar route all needed to be wary especially of crosswinds.
Brookside
We set off the now familiar route out of Cambridge via Silver Street, Grange Road and out onto Huntingdon Road. From there we crossed over toward Girton and then picked up the busway. With our coffee stop today at St Ives being fairly close to the start I decided to turn off the busway at Oakington and ride out toward Cottenham with a fantastic tailwind. From there we picked up Rampton Road and cycled through Rampton, into Willingham and down into Over where we encountered for the first time really strong head and cross winds. Just before we again reached the busway at Swavesey we picked up Mike CC who was riding from home straight to coffee.
We reached St Ives and the River Tea Rooms just after 11am and found Adrian and David W already there. We all ordered a well deserved coffee/tea and cakes and were soon also joined by Ed and Mick C and then Seb and Alex.
Just before we started the debate as to what we would do for the afternoon planned ride to St Neots the skies darkened and the rain and hail started to lash down. Our collective minds were easily made up – we were all going to head back home along the busway (again!) as quickly as possible.
The round trip was a breezy 35 miles but an enjoyable coffee stop and then back to families and dogs.
Thank you to all who joined me today to make a very pleasant relatively short ride.
John Ross