21 March 2024. Roger’s Beautiful Buildings Birthday Ride. 32 miles.

Birthdays are coming thick and fast at present, what with Maurice’s last week, Roger’s this week and Rod getting in early next week with his 81st before he departs to Oz for 2.5 months after Easter. Keep ’em coming – we all love it when birthday boys and girls buy the drinks.

Graham chose a delightful route through quiet Essex lanes to celebrate Roger’s birthday. Accompanied by Rod, Maurice, Andrew, Ken, Keith, Simon, Deborah and the duo of Martins, the route started at an old favourite The Fox & Hounds in Steeple Bumpstead and took us on an anti-clockwise route via Great Bardfield, The Blue Egg for coffee, and through lots of Ends – Bridge End, Church End, Rotten End, Blackmore End – until the final end back at The Fox & Hounds for lunch.

This is where we went:

Great Bardfield is both a pretty and interesting place which is well worth a stop on future rides to admire some of its fine buildings, many of which were once homes to famous artists between 1930 and 1970. Known as the Great Bardfield Artists, they shared a love of figurative art which made them distinct from the better known St. Ives School of artists in Cornwall. Amongst them were Edward Bawden, whose works can often be seen in the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden, Eric Ravilious (who also made wonderful drawings of Sussex landmarks) and John Aldridge. Associated with them also was Bernard Cheese, whose paintings of boats on Aldeburgh beach are very collectable. A talk on Great Bardfield Artists is being given in Ickleton Village Hall on 11 July at 7.30pm for those who might be interested in attending.

All went swimmingly as far as The Blue Egg where, once again, we enjoyed some excellent coffee and cakes whilst sitting outside, although some were heard mentioning that the choice was not perhaps as comprehensive as usual.

The return leg of 20 miles started on the busy stretch of road outside The Blue Egg which created two groups of riders. The second group also split up into those who knew the way and those who didn’t, plus those who wished to admire some of the beautiful buildings that we passed continuously, so much so that Deborah suggested the title of this blog should be Beautiful Buildings Ride, which it is, sort of.

The lost souls caught up but it wasn’t long before a double whammy happened simultaneously to tail enders Deborah and Martin. ‘I’ve got a puncture’, shouted Deborah. ‘And I’ve got an electrical issue’, shouted Martin. The latter was easy to fix, or so it was thought, but without a spare tube or tools poor Deborah started to think about walking the 9 miles still to go. Martin’s spare tube was too big but a call to Gallant Graham, who frequently comes to Deborah’s rescue, soon had him whizzing back with a tube and getting stuck into the job of removing her tyre and replacing the punctured tube.

On we went, thinking that the first group was probably stuck into a pint and having lunch by this time, only for Martin’s electrics to play up again and a few minutes were spent sorting them out whilst Graham and Deborah went ahead. Eventually all 3 of us reached The Fox & Hounds together to find that lunch was indeed in full swing.

Joining us at lunch were Brian who had ridden 19 miles on his bike from home, Tom who had off-roaded on his motor bike for much of the way, via Chrishall, and Nigel who had come on his motor bike from near Much Hadham. All joined in with a hearty rendering of Happy Birthday to Roger, who kindly bought the drinks. Thanks Roger!

And what did we all talk about?

Thanks go to Graham for not only organising the route but also once again acting as shepherd to his flock.

Martin