5 Counties (New Year’s Day) Ride Out

Friday 1st Jan 2016

A report by Dik Langan

When I was chatting with Brian about the ride in the warmth of the late summer, he came up with the idea that we change the route and I of course dropped him right in it by volunteering him to come up with the new route.  To be fair he and I have been on the ride together for many years now and it has always been the same anti-clockwise circuit.  There was even a year when it was just he and I on the ride, so he was absolutely right that it was time for a refresh.

So as the day got closer, and between thoughts of the Christmas Lunch, he posted me the description of a route.  It took me a quiet hour to transfer that on to Tyre and send him a map of it so he could make sure I understood it right then hey presto we had a ride, now all we needed were some people to go on it.

A few emails out to the East Anglia membership showed there was some appetite for it so the ride was on, now we crossed our fingers that the weather would behave.

Sure enough on the day it was pretty much as promised by the weather-watchers and so as we gathered at the new start point it was cold (with some reporting setting off from home in below-zero tempratures) but dry and not much wind.  By the time we were ready to set off I could not believe just how many turned out – a full 15 bikes, 3 with pilions which is pretty much near the most we have ever had (though I think there was a year when 20 people turned up).

Brian did save on elittle surprise for me, bless his heart: he asked me to lead the ride.  Well, I had programmed my sat nav up as I intended to be tail gunner anyway, so why not.  After a quick check that everyone knew the drop off system (and a brief run down of it for those that didn’t, making sure they placed themselves near the back so they could see it happening before they needed to do anything) we set off within 5 minutes of the scheduled departure time.

As already mentioned we were heading clockwise this year so first we headed south from Bury St Edmunds down to Halstead then west across to Saffron Walden and then heading north up to Royston.  This leg of the journey was chilly but the sun was trying to come out and the roads were pretty good, just a few slippy manhole covers and road wash to contend with, but that’s part of the joy of riding – the adrenaline.

We stopped at Royston Tesco’s much to the delight of the coffee shop manager and he asked us to return next year or any time between as their New Year’s Day is usually very quiet, but asked that we give him a little notice (not sure if he intended to bake a cake…).

Setting off from there about 5 minutes after schedule (which, with 18 people to gather shows how keen everyone was, I was expecting it to be more like 15 minutes, what a great bunch to ride with) we carried on north past Papworth, over the A14 and off to the fens starting to turn  east toward Norfolk.  The wildlife in the fens is wonderful this time of year and with the reduced foliage makes it a lot easier to spot them, of course riding a bike is so much better for that anyway, especially with the chin piece up (yes, it had warmed up for me to ride pretty much the whole of the ride to this point "open face", though when we turned south I did have to close it against the chill breeze).

We stopped off at the Ship Inn at Brandon Creek for lunch, arriving pretty much dead on the scheduled time of 2pm and with the delight of seeing 3 bikes from other Club members who had arranged to meet us there.  We warmed ourselves by their fire and ate great food to keep us going for the last leg.  Some of the hardy group had already ridden down from this part of the world to join us at the start so it made more sense for them to head home from here and a few others peeled off as we headed back down to Bury St Edmunds.

My only disappointment is that I was not able to go round and get everyones names but many of you said how much you had enjoyed the ride (despite my sat nav taking us on a couple of unscheduled detours – well the maps are a few years old, how was I to know they had built a Tescos there) and there were a few comments on "how about we do one in the Summer as well?".

As always I am more than up for it so if there is anyone out there, whether they participated on this ride or not, who would like to submit a route I would be more than willing to run tail-gunner or even lead it and I know we would have a good turn out, so come on folks get in touch, you know my details.

So enough waffle here are some more pictures from the day from various contributors: