London to Cambridge
Posted on Tuesday 1 May 2007 by Ken Peters
The Hon Secretary reckoned that there would be many people on this ride who cannot be classed as the usual suspects and so it proved with four new riders as well as a few that I was surprised to see so maybe Saturday rides could be successful. There was a flurry of activity during the week as I had several phone calls as well as text messages to deal with from prospective riders and I only had to turn down one person.Saturday morning at about 08:30 as I was riding down Shoreditch High Street I spotted a guy on a road and when we were stopped at the traffic lights he said did I know anything about the London - Cambridge ride. It was fortunate that he asked me as I was leading it so I told him to follow and he then promptly disappeared. Later he turned up by then I had also met Simon Miller on the road and there were already two others waiting at the entrance to Liverpool Street Station. Before we left I had a brief trip to the usual meeting location and found Terry Hanson as well as having to take a call from another rider, Alex Guite, who needed to know which bit of the station we were at.
Ten started but by the time we got to Kingsland Road we were down to nine as Alan Macalpine dropped out as he was feeling unwell. At Stamford Hill we became eleven by picking up two women. A few might say that is typical of me but it was strictly by arrangement that Linda Barton and Sarah Gordon, who was another of the new riders, were waiting at the agreed location.
Soon after as we rode away from Tottenham Hale we had a dual puncture halt as my troublesome rear tyre had again let me down or maybe it was just my usual bad tube repair that had not held. Stuart also joined me in flipping his bike upside down. I excelled myself with the speedy tube and tyre change but managed to select a faulty tube as no sooner had I put the wheel back onto the bike than the tube exploded with a very loud bang. At Waltham Abbey we had another halt when Stuart fell foul of the puncture gods for the second time. This was a slightly longer halt as, unfortunately, in re-inflating the tube he managed to tear the valve out so the stop turned out to be a bit longer than expected as he had no further spares but my capacious bag came to the rescue with one of the four tubes I was carrying. I should thank Terry for given Stuart some impromptu roadside puncture repair tuition.
After that we then had a pretty brisk late morning ride in glorious sunshine as we attempted to make up for lost time. I decided not to alter the stopping points that I had planned so it was nearly noon when we rolled into Hopley’s Garden Centre at Much Hadham, having covered almost 50K, for our morning coffee stop. At that point we nearly lost Suzanne, another new rider, who missed the group turning off the road, as we were well strung out, but Terry chased her down pretty quickly.
Suitably refreshed we pressed on towards the lunch stop at Clavering which was less than 20K further on but about 3K short of our lunch destination Angela realised that she had left her jacket at Much Hadham and had to turn back to retrieve her possessions. Linda returned with her and I think that they then headed for Bishops Stortford to get a train back.
Lunch was excellent and the quality of the food was appreciated by all as well as the opportunity to catch breath as I was still setting a fairly fast pace to try and claw back lost time. At this point I can thank Simon for providing some shelter from the wind and sharing pacemaking duties. At lunch we lost Kelvin and Simon who set off in opposite directions. Kelvin pressed on to Audley End, which was on the route as he had domestic commitments to get back for and Simon turned round to ride back to London. Thanks for the company both of you.
After lunch we then proceeded at a much more sedate pace and without much more excitement we arrived safely at Cambridge. Somewhere along the road, I suspect at Arkesden, we managed to lose Terry but as there was disagreement as to whether he had continued with us or had returned to London with Simon we pressed on after a lengthy pause. I have had a call from him, which explained that he may have managed to lose himself but I must remember to check the group more often.
In Cambridge we lost Sarah who was meeting friends and Stuart who was finding a pub to watch the Cricket World Cup Final and then a bed for the night as he was staying in Cambridge overnight. Four of us returned to London, namely, Suzanne, Alexander, Martin and myself and suffered a hours delay due to an accident near Cheshunt so it was a late finish and no bike cleaning for me before my Sunday recce to check the rote that I will be leading shortly.
Final thanks to everyone for being a good bunch and for, almost always, following my instructions. A great day during which we all managed the rare feat of enjoying the head/side winds that we usually hate as it kept the feel of the temperature down on a very warm ride.