Fenland Fancy
Posted on Thursday 24 September 2009 by Stephen Taylor
It is always potluck booking a table at a pub for a bunch of hungry cyclists. Usually I make a booking for ten but will I have that many? On one occasion there was just the three of us – we were still made welcome at the pub, though. This time I had the opposite problem when the pub suddenly had to cater for twice the number! Luckily the pub, the Anchor Inn at Sutton Gault, was able to rise to the challenge. We were served excellent food and given wonderful service.
The purpose of the ride was to seek out the great drains. massive man-made waterways that criss cross the fens, The Anchor sits on the edge of the One Hundred Foot Drain; a little later we cycled along the edge of the Forty Foot Drain, both built in the seventeenth century by Cornelius Vermuyden, using the technology from his native Holland.
The big fenland sky was a crumpled grey all day although the occasional tear let a shaft of weak sunlight break through. And at one point, just after lunch it was torn open by the thunderous roar of the Red Arrows hurtling overhead!
On the ride out we battled against a massive headwind with no shelter on the open roads. A little after lunch, though, we turned about and the wind was on our backs. We bowled along ramrod straight roads as if we were riding kites instead of bikes.
At Huntingdon most of us chose to end our day’s riding but a handful decided to take advantage of the tailwind and carry on to St Neots where we had started that morning.