Wednesday, 13 July 2016
Nigel writes: Today's evening ride was planned to head east, with a pub stop in Quy. Usually that involves a fairly fast loop round Six Mile Bottom and Dullingham, but since we had done that only two weeks ago, this time I turned up at Brookside ready to propose a gentle trundle through the fens instead. I was the first one there; the next rider to arrive was Stan, and when I presented the two main options he readily agreed with my suggestion, as did Paul, Daniel and Ray when they joined us.
Assembling at Brookside
So we set off east from Brookside, headed down to the river and followed our regular route to Fen Ditton and Quy. It was quite a cool evening; there had been rain earlier, but the evening was dry with patches of brightness and a light tailwind which blew us along the "old" NCN51 route via Bottisham, the Swaffhams and Reach to Burwell.
View from the footbridge over Burwell Lode
We headed north from Burwell into the fens proper. By the time we reached the bridge over Burwell Lode, the sun had come out and we paused to admire the fine evening view.
Our journey back west was along the Lodes Way. This is a pleasant traffic-free cycle path, but the first couple of kilometres have a loose, gravelly surface which I find quite slippery and dangerous, and it was a relief to meet hard (if potholed) tarmac further along. Along the way we found our path completely blocked by a herd of wild ponies, and it took us several minutes to negotiate a way through them.
Crossing Reach Lode
After crossing Reach Lode and White Fen we arrived in Lode itself, and after a short run along the B1102 arrived in Quy where we stopped at the White Swan. Stan decided to skip the pub and go straight hone, but in compensation we met Ian W who had been out for a ride on his own. As usual, several of us ordered bowls of chips with our drinks.
We lingered in the pub for a while before setting off back towards Cambridge via Fen Ditton and Ditton Meadows. We had only just missed the 9.15pm sunset, but the temperature had fallen noticeably and we all remarked at how cold it was for July. However we didn't have far to go; instead of stopping to put on another layer we simply cycled a bit faster. I arrived back home at 9.45pm, having cycled 48km (
30 miles).
Nigel Deakin
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GPS track (GPX).