Essex and Suffolk Borders / Estuaries 200 / 100 from Manningtree: 2/4/2022

[αdαmsκι]

200 Manningtree start https://audax.uk/event-details?eventId=9257
200 Buntingford start: https://audax.uk/event-details?eventId=9625
100: https://audax.uk/event-details?eventId=9534

[The info below is all about the 200.]

This is a long way in advance, but as I am now on holiday and unable to leave Plague Island, I've been planning...

I have ridden Green & Yellow Fields 300 and Asparagus & Strawberries 400 a number of times, but also found it a bit of a shame there wasn't a complementary 200 from Manningtree. It always seemed a good place to start a ride; convenient public transport links esp from east London, massive car park, very quick access to lovely roads and beer at the finish .

Having spoken with Huggy & Tomsk I've now taken the decision to solve this issue by organising a Manningtree 200. It'll be based on Herman Ramsay's 200 perm, as it was Herman who originally set up the Green & Yellow Fields 300 and Asparagus & Strawberries 400. Details have been registered with AUK, with a date set for Saturday 2nd April. To keep with the naming of the 300 and 400 this ride is called Essex & Suffolk Borders.

The ride will start from Manningtree, retrace the A&S400 route to Saffron Walden and carry on to Great Chishill. The first control will be at the Great Chishill windmill. This makes a long first leg, but there's plenty of facilities on the route if needed. From there the ride continues on to Barley and Barkway, before turning off to drop into Buntingford, which is pretty much halfway.

The return involves an info control in Manuden (just north of Bishop's Stortford) and the route then heads north-east to Lavenham via Radwinter, Steeple Bumpstead, Stoke by Clare and Long Melford. It's almost 75 km from Buntingford to Lavenham, but again facilities are available on the route if required.

The final section back to Manningtree is via Boxford, Polstead and Stratford St. Mary.

It is a choppy route. There aren't any stand out climbs, but it is constant ups and downs for pretty much the whole route. There's loads of extremely quaint villages on route, for example: Bures, Finnichingfield, Saffron Walden, Stoke by Clare, Long Melford and Lavenham and only ~10 km of A roads, which are pretty quiet A roads too. The rest is either lanes or good quality B roads. Should be a fab day out, hopefully with spring weather rather than an extended winter.

More details will come closer to the time; this is just as a heads up about the event.

[quixoticgeek]

If this is run as a BRM, and travel works. I am very tempted to nip over to ride it!

J

[αdαmsκι]

Yes BRM

[quixoticgeek]

Yes BRM

Fantastic. You mention that it's always up or down, what are the gradients like?

J

[bhoot]

Nice one - anything with easy train travel gets my vote. Thanks Adam for a very worthy addition to the calendar.

[Andy W]

This looks like a marvellous route. I hope I'm able to participate as I'm familiar with the western half of the route, living in North herts.  I can confirm both the choppiness of some of the hills and more importantly the beauty of the villages and surrounding countryside.

[jiberjaber]

I rode the perm of this with Sister Carlos OTP in 2016 and it was a fine ride but at the time I felt it was a testing day in the saddle... looking back I see it had about the same climbing as most 200's in the region but it is a little corrugated 40k at the end

I am sure it will be a grand day out! 

[Tomsk]

Fantastic. You mention that it's always up or down, what are the gradients like?

J

Choppy indeed. I don't know the numbers, but steep enough to have riders cursing the organiser at the finish of the A&S 400. (Though reversed in this case - Burnt Dick Hill, is a fast descent but with a gravelly blind bend at the bottom!) The short ups in the Vale of Dedham and the climb up from Manuden are all rideable on 75" fixed (47 x 17) by this 63 year-old with a bit of tacking. Parsonage Hill up to Boxted is the worst this way round I think, as you turn sharp into it and don't keep any momentum. The steepest part is at the top, just before a blind bend, so tack with care!  The longer climbs in NW Essex/E Herts on the chalk are fairly gentle gradients.

Its a lovely route - ridden it many times as the permenent, but often starting from Saffron Walden as it's near home.

[Carlosfandango]

It's a fine ride, one of my favourite 200's.

[αdαmsκι]

Choppy indeed. I don't know the numbers, but steep enough to have riders cursing the organiser at the finish of the A&S 400. (Though reversed in this case - Burnt Dick Hill, is a fast descent but with a gravelly blind bend at the bottom!) The short ups in the Vale of Dedham and the climb up from Manuden are all rideable on 75" fixed (47 x 17) by this 63 year-old with a bit of tacking. Parsonage Hill up to Boxted is the worst this way round I think, as you turn sharp into it and don't keep any momentum. The steepest part is at the top, just before a blind bend, so tack with care!  The longer climbs in NW Essex/E Herts on the chalk are fairly gentle gradients.

Further to Tomsk's reply, yes there's not much flat riding but nothing is that steep. And having just looked at the OS map I don't see any chevrons on the route.

[citoyen]

This looks fun. *adds to calendar*

[felstedrider]

I could ECE but it would have me riding East/West all day.

Easter is late next year so not a bad time to fit a 200 in.

[psyclist]

I could ECE, but that would push it up to a 400km.

If only one could start in the west.

I think the hill out from Manuden is the steepest on the route. It is not that long, and only the last bit is particularly steep ... but as Tomsk says, doable on fixed with a bit of tacking. The road is single track and very quiet, so using the whole road is usually not an issue.

[αdαmsκι]

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If only one could start in the west.
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Huggy is sorting out the perm

[psyclist]

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If only one could start in the west.
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Huggy is sorting out the perm

Perfect 

[Lightning Phil]

That’d make a good perm for me, starting Buntingford.  It’ll overlap the Stevenage Start of summertime lanes in places.  But plenty of different lanes as it swings down to (and up from) Manningtree. See it goes up via Wyddial . One of my favourite quiet lanes.

[αdαmsκι]

This looks fun. *adds to calendar*

Cool, but don't expect quite the same TLC as you received on The Way to the Sea!

I could ECE but it would have me riding East/West all day.

Nice 300 for you

That’d make a good perm for me, starting Buntingford.  It’ll overlap the Stevenage Start of summertime lanes in places.  But plenty of different lanes as it swings down to (and up from) Manningtree. See it goes up via Wyddial . One of my favourite quiet lanes.

It is based on Herman Ramsey's Manningtree 200 perm, which has been handed over to Huggy. I'm not sure how the controls work on the perm because Manningtree > Saffron Walden > Buntingford > Lavenham > Manningtree is 192 km shortest distance. I got it to work as a calendar ride by adding in the Great Chishill checkpoint and also pulling the route down to Manuden (which wasn't on the original route), but neither would work as a perm control due to the lack of ATMs etc.

[huggy]

The Manningtree 200 perm track can be found in this ACME RwGPS events folder:
https://ridewithgps.com/events/139261-essex-perms

Route sheet available as a photocopy of Herman's original, electronic version of event entry/validation TBA.  I have a limited number of brevets for this perm in stock.

[Carlosfandango]

I've ridden the original perm a couple of times, once with jibberjaber and once or twice alone, it's a lovely local route for me.
ATM's are unreliable now, frequently no paper installed for a receipt, I waited for Manningtree Coop to open. Hermann's route sheet was very pub based, but unfortunately a significant number of those pubs are now private houses, this is a simple route, so that was OK. The 300 perm a bit more tricky. GPS the way to go.

Hermann was the most charming organiser I've had the pleasure to correspond with. He was very happy that people were still riding his routes.

Nostalgia might drag me out for this one again.

[GavinC]

The perm was my first 200 on a recumbent and will always be remembered as the day I discovered that sunburnt shins are a thing when riding laid back  Sadly, living at the western end of the route, a calendar version of the ride doesn’t work so well for me, but it’s a lovely ride nonetheless

[arabella]

I'm failling to remember the 200 route I have which goes through Manningtree as a makeweight for what would otherwise be an out and back from Ipswich to Buntingford.  istr Thaxted appears, and Bures.  Similar ground though. 

[citoyen]

This looks fun. *adds to calendar*

Cool, but don't expect quite the same TLC as you received on The Way to the Sea!

A good route can compensate for a lack of mini scotch eggs!

[farfetched]

I'd be interested in having a go at this, coming via the ferry from Hoek it might be possible to do it and get back for
the ferry home in the evening although that might be pushing it. I will keep an eye on it anyway. (usual covid provisos apply)

[αdαmsκι]

That's a great idea. The night ferry from Hoek van Holland docks at 06h30 and there's (currently) a train at 07h20 and 07h31 that will get you to Manningtree station with plenty of time to start the ride. Even completing the ride in 13½ hours would give you time to get back to Harwich to catch the night ferry home. Or stay somewhere for the Saturday night and catch the Sunday day ferry back to Hoek van Holland for a more leisurely post ride evening.

[psyclist]

If farfetched is who I think it is, then the 17km from Harwich would be completed by bike before those train times.

As for the return, the ferry is 23:00 or 23:30, so plenty of time to get back for that. When we've travelled in the reverse direction to do a DIY 200km, we get impacted by the later docking time in Hoek.