Thursday’s ride invitation looked to be clear enough as to the lunch venue: The Black BULL at Balsham, as used last July. For some reason, this caused some confusion amongst some Windmillers, with “Bulls” being confused with Horses (Black) and then onto any other flavour of animal (also Black). Luckily thirteen Windmillers were sufficiently on the ball (or bull ?) to get to the correct start of our ride – a reverse of a route we did last July.
Its always nice when you can sit outside the pub in the morning sipping coffees and catching up on any gossip. A lovely sunny start for Simon’s ride. As is normal for Windmill rides, it proved far more difficult than it should to organise into two roughly equal groups, but eventually we managed to drag ourselves away from the coffee and the sunny terrace and onto the road.
You know you are in for a tough finish to the ride when you set off down hill and down wind – but that was a problem for later as we rolled out to West Wickham and Withersfield. From here, it was past the former Karro pork ‘processing’ plant, now owned by the Canadian Sofina Foods group. The crossing of the busy A143 between Great Wratting and Kedington can be a bit fraught, but this time we all got across safely with no near miss incidents to report.
The narrow road past the start of Cock Hill and onto Boyton End is always a delight, but a rude awakening on the short section of main road leading us onto Tarkas cafe. Once again a pleasure to be able to take tea and coffee and cake on the patio outside the café and to admire the vintage fuel pump at the front.
Back on the road, it became apparent that a) it had gotten a lot warmer through the morning and b) we were now heading into an ever stiffening breeze. Consequently the drag up to Birdbrook and the subsequent undulating countryside were starting to feel like hard work. By the time we arrived at the Camps, group one opted for a well earned breather whilst, social to a fault, group 2 sailed past and onto the A1307 crossing at Wethersfield. Last July’s political tirade banners were nowhere in evidence.
From here, its a short ride to Balsham, but not before the sting in the tail ‘bastardo’ hill right at the end.
The juice man from Del Monte (AKA Brian resplendent in his straw hat) was waiting for us at the BLACK BULL pub. Well earned beers were quaffed outside in the sunshine, before heading inside for lunch. A cracking day all round, thanks Simon for organising.
Roger, Andrew, Graham, Alan, Howard, Keith, Jeremy, Simon, Sandra, Deborah, Maurice, Rod, Martin W, Brian for Lunch
The Windmill Cycle Club 