Hello all, it's good to read about other on the route because we started at about 9 and I manahed to puncture while foolish hopping from pavement to road after the early ford and landed the back wheel plus pannier squarely onto something very hard under the edge of the water, putting a horrid ding in the rim, the first tube was clearly not repaired properly and by the time I'd changed it again most of the ride had gone past, travelling at the lady wife's average speed of 11mph, dropping to 10.1mph by the end we certainly didn't pass anyone
The clubs tore past us a litle later and it was a lng day out on our own thereafter, we made check1 just, check 3 where three very nice old buffers did us coffee and banannas and after that not a soul, a new gpd did us proud as regards route although I might have struggled wihtout the route sheet too
the pubs looked awfully good but we dare not stop, the wife came near to bonking at 50 miles and just about kept going thereafter, things of course got grim as it got dark and we got ont the busier roads outside Billericay, the last proper direction to count roads and take the seventh right was not nice to slowly decipher under passing street lights, thank heaven for the gps on that one
company would have been nice, we saw some faces passing us heading home as we crawled to the centre of the figure of eight going north
oh well, I certainly enjoyed the Essex back roads, not sure I've ever seen so many grass triangles and barns in my life, the wife is till undecided and is presently saying 60 miles is her limit, that or summer rides only
