With thanks to Keith for stepping up to organise this ride at late notice. Its always pot luck what sort of turn out we’ll get on wet, windy pre-Christmas December days. In the end, this was a pretty good turn out. However, wet, Easterly windy conditions and the absence of Charles restricted photography to a bare minimum so as blogs go, this one is gearing up to be pretty brief !
The Black Bull at Balsham is always a good starting point, with a roaring fire and coffee to start the proceedings. Also, the rain was just about holding off when we set off as two groups toward Streetly End windmill. Unfortunately Maurice’s encyclopaedic knowledge of multiple routes hereabouts meant that, on auto pilot, he managed to miss the Streetly detour and was not seen again until coffee !
Now in steady light drizzle and headwind, we crossed the busy A1307 via the sneaky path cut through at Horseheath and headed up to the Camps. From there, it was past the trig point (126m altitude) and the radio mast at Olmstead and down to Helions Bumpstead.
At Helions Bumstead, the second group caught up with a puncture repair to Keith’s bike in progress. Ric stayed on to lend his proper old skool, full sized bike pump whilst the rest of us ploughed on towards the promise of coffee.
At Steeple Bumpstead, the newly promoted leading group took an executive decision to not head up another hill but head in the most direct line towards Tarkas café. Fully re-inflated the new second group were made of sterner stuff and completed the route up the hill as planned.
Coffees and yummy teacakes later and Maurice back in the fold, it was back into the damp (but now with a following breeze) it was off via Kedington and Great Wratting and Withersfield back to the pub for beer and lunch, where a glass was raised to Martin W.
As a footnote, anyone cycling home from Balsham will have received an absolute drenching as the drizzle gave way to a downpour !
Deborah, Andrew, Martin B, Alan, Keith, Maurice, Brian, Ric, Simon, Howard, Jeremy, Rod
The Windmill Cycle Club 