Thursday, 13 May 2021
Simon writes: With the growing number of interested applicants for each week's Thursday ride, a decision had to be made; do I disappoint a third of them and inhibit the club's post lockdown recovery, or do I deploy a covid-compatible way to accommodate everyone's aspirations? A pre-emptive call to last week's leader, John J, felt in order, to line up my ducks to have a pre-arranged second leader to split the ride into two separate groups ready at the start.
The cunning plan, to ensure that the two groups didn't haphazardly recombine, was to divide the riders by their preference of pace – sending the four who were happy with a 12.5-13 mph pace to set off first, and give them five minutes head start before leaving with the group happier with 12-12.5mph. This was important also, to keep the influx of visitors to the coffee stop cafe to small, manageable, interspersed groups, and it worked!
As it turned out, Greg arranged to meet us at the Gogs instead of trucking into town, and Yasmin mistook the 9am start time as being 9.30. So, John set off with Peter, while I followed with Rachel, Mike CC, and newcomer Gavin.
Somehow Yasmin managed to catch up with my group and Greg decided to wait for ours as well, making it a 6-2 split but hey, that still works.
The route, emailed to everyone except (to my error) Rachel, took us out of town over the Gogs, through the Babraham Institute and the usual way to Linton. This is where the direction changed because I really like that quiet country lane between Bartlow and Hadstock. This combines a secluded little grassed roadside verge enclosed by a tree-populated embankment and also meets the rivers Granta, Bourne, and a tributary of the Granta.
All photos: John J
Very soon the road does a dogleg where the brick walls of an old Stour valley railway bridge are still evident. I guess now that's what the embankment was for. The Bartlow station, which formed the junction with the Saffron Walden line, was part of the Beeching cuts of the 1960s, throughout which 5000 miles of Britain's railways and over 2000 stations were axed.
A half mile further we were occasioned by a curious little square-achitectured brick building with a black metal structure mounted atop. Clearly a water tower, but curiously, some 22 chains (21⁄4 furlongs) away from the old railway, assuming that's what it was originally for.
After closing our outward loop through Walden and Debden, those with a penchant for Dorrington's bacon butties were duly satiated and glad to know that the fountain of porcine culinary delights had escaped the impact of our current blight.
The weather was certainly a grade better than forecast, with warm and
frequently sunny spells. We did see three and a bit drops of rain on the
way back in Thriplow, but this was about as fleeting as a Higgs boson
particle in the Hadron Collider and the move, by some, to don a token
waterproof jacket was little more than a psychological insurance policy
to make sure it didn't happen again for the last eight miles of our
ride.
My thanks for photos and second group leader go to our membership
secretary, John J. Simon G