We overtook someone (blue surly?) not far down the road, and then shortly after Dave suddenly panicked that he had left his water bottle in Waitrose, lost concentration and we left the road in favour of the verge. He manfully kept a grip on the steering and we duly re-joined the carriageway, but these things don’t happen too fast on a tandem. So if Mr Blue Surly is reading this, please be assured that no he hadn’t been at the gin and we don’t normally overtake people and then career off the road!
Ah so that's the explanation. It was spectacular to watch - great recovery! Good job you didn't leave behind a Garmin or similar
Next up was a minor navigational error – we missed the sign for New Buckenham or so we thought. A quick look at the map (we are traditionalists) showed us an alternative route to avoid retracing our steps. Tomsk later confirmed that the sign was missing so maybe we weren’t the only ones to get this wrong.
Yes that caught me out as well, I didn't have a map, but the friendly local plasterer who told me he'd lived in the area all his life put me right ... I retraced my overshoot. There did appear to be a very large number of broken, missing and twisted-around signs in North Norfolk ... surely some sort of deliberate local sabotage, but not sufficiently cunning to defeat the Tomsk routesheet.
The bluebells in Dodnash Wood beside the road after leaving the A12 were amazing, best I've seen so far this year.
+1
I'd ridden the wonderful Elenydd a couple of weeks before this ride; this ride was equally wonderful, and wonderfully different. The contrast between them is a great illustration of the variety to be found in audax rides. It's the difference between East and West, mountainous and flat, riding in a well paced group compared with a more individual ride with occasional pairing, riding all night rather than into the night.
The pre-ride meal makes a nice sociable start to this event (compared with an early night in the tent on the Elenydd). I rode most of the way to Burnham Deepdale with the Tomsk peloton which continued the friendly nature of the ride, and was at Burnham Deepdale well before opening time. After a leisurely breakfast the strengthening headwind was a bit more of a challenge than I expected, but I knew with so much time in hand it would be very hard to fail to make the time limit. I was soon passed by Team Tomsk who seemed much less troubled by the wind; I joined them for a very short distance but soon decided it was too fast for me, so switched into tourist mode and enjoyed the views, the birdsong, meeting up with others at the controls. I even managed a short snooze in a very comfortable stone built bus shelter
which was invigorating well beyond its short duration! My return train ticket was off peak only so I was taking it easy so as not to hang around too long in Manningtree waiting for the off peak trains to start (feel free to add this to your own catalogue of excuses) - until somebody told me that all the trains are off-peak on Saturday
so I speeded up getting to Manningtree just after 5pm in good time for a fast train back to Liverpool Street.
What a great way to spend a weekend!
I might join you again for the Asparagus and Strawberries, assuming I survive the Bryan Chapman voyage ... another West and East pairing
My heavy gauge blue Surly tourer wasn't my first choice bike for this event, but it had the supreme advantage of being in working condition, has great lights, and was super comfortable leaving me relatively un-beatenup. In retrospect these Surly miles could prove to be an ace training strategy when I switch to a lighter bike for the BCM (I may be in trouble otherwise) ...
