Controls: Intermediate start finish Location at Buxton. Acle, Halesworth, Ixworth, Manningtree, Saffron Walden, Red Lodge (Barton Mills) Wells-next-the-sea, Buxton.
I liked the look of this ride from the route on the calendar event in June, but I didn’t have the legs for the distance back in June, so thought I would give it a go as a Permanent ride in August. I dovetailed the ride in with a visit back to Norfolk to see some family and handily enough, my in-laws (where I was staying for the weekend) lived on the route in-between the control towns of Wells-next-the-sea and Acle, and I would plan to start/finish the ride from this intermediate point. So, I applied for the Perm ride indicating my plans for start/finish and after arriving back home from a weeks holiday I found that the Perm organiser had sent my brevet card through with a handwritten note. The note suggested that I “play by the rules” and start from a control town, and later went on to suggest that I ride the route in reverse (clockwise), which I had planned to do already. I was surprised at the suggestion from the Perm organiser that I start/finish at a control town, and at the insinuation that by not starting/finishing in a control town, that I wasn’t already playing by the rules – my plan cut out no controls and remained a full course ride. Starting from a control town, be it Wells or Acle was not possible for me based on the family duties of the weekend.
I contacted the Perms Secretary and my local Audax rep, explained the situation to them and after a number of emails between us agreed that I should bypass the local Perm organiser and send my brevet direct to the Perm secretary (who has final validation on perm rides in any case).
A night or two before leaving for Norfolk I went to locate my Garmin head unit, I had split the full ride up in to sections and loaded it on my Garmin. I could not find the head unit anywhere at all. Searched the house and car and garage for over 2 hours, had my in-laws searching in their house too. All to no avail. Plan B was for me to borrow my mates Garmin Edge Touring Plus, which I could get the night before the ride and load the routes onto. Massive thanks to my mate and his wife for helping me out when I needed them. Lots of gear prep, bike prep and food prep the night before, then it was off to bed for a 5am wake up the following morning.
Fed and watered, I was off st 06:05 obtaining the start receipt. I checked out the ATM at the shop in preparation for the finish control, and unfortunately the ATM was out of order – this would mean a photo control for the finish if the ATM was out of action. I knew the wind was coming from the South West, and that was largely the direction I was headed in for a reversed route. I was on the road to Acle and all was very quiet in terms of traffic and people, my concentration was on maintaining a reasonable speed with minimal physical effort and also just settling into the ride. My left knee was providing intermittent and varied niggles which were moving around the knee randomly. Eventually I was able to ride and not be affected by these niggles, but they were a little bit concerning for a spell.
I had planned my departure time on the village shop opening time and the Reedham Ferry opening time, so controlling in Acle and quickly arriving at Reedham Ferry the chain pull ferry was on my side of the river – which was a bonus. However, the operator informed me that he wasn’t open for business until 8am, so that gave me 10/15 minutes to climb off the bike and enjoy the early morning views over the broads. I had previously crossed the river several times on this ferry, so I spent some time to reminisce on some of those rides I used to make. I was the only person on the ferry and the operator actually took me over a little earlier than 8am, as he had to open the other side up, once disembarked the road was flat, straight and smooth and good progress was made into South Norfolk and Suffolk.
Halesworth was the next control, and I had visited this town before for a control in my first ever Audax ride in 2003, a 105kM event called the WaterBug? There were several cafés open, but I didn’t feel like sitting down and ordering food, so I got a croissant and a danish in a bakery. The receipt from the bakery was handwritten, so to avoid any later issues with validation I purchased a chocolate bar from a Spar shop and got a printed receipt. I sat on a bench in the centre of town and ate the pastries before heading off for the next control town of Ixworth.
Familiar roads again through Walpole past the private estate with manicured gardens and lakes onto Stradbroke and Eye before crossing the A140 main Ipswich road. Passed through a tiny place called Mellis, which had a rather nice train line and railway tavern next to the crossing, seemed nice. Onto some very minor and quiet roads from here, which made it difficult for the one or two cars encountered to pass me, so I pulled over when necessary. Getting into Ixworth was easy, just crossing over the A143 then south into the town. I quickly found a café and ordered a nice coffee and some cottage pie. It was around midday and I felt like hot food would give me a good feeling for the next stage of the ride. Coffee was excellent and I filled my bidons whilst waiting for the food. The cottage pie came promptly and it was very good.
The next stage was heading off south east to Manningtree (where the perm originally starts/finishes), the road was a narrow and newly laid shingle kind of thing and good progress was difficult to achieve, however just continuing to segment the ride and fixate on the smaller objectives of the next road change, the next village, the next town and the next control made the ride interesting. Before too long I was in Manningtree, and I was struck by how small it was. I wanted to stop at a Supermarket but could not spot one along the route so I went up to the train station to control. There was a hatch at the station café from which I ordered the last of the days sandwiches – a corned beef and spring onion piece which really had seen better days. A bottle of coke was the perfect refreshment though. I sat outside the station and ate for a while just watching the arrivals, pick ups and departures before pressing on again.
Heading east into mid Essex countryside was pleasant, I had a feel for the terrain from previous rides and I knew it would be quite pretty, with a few lumps and bumps. There were some very nice houses along the way and also a number of these kind of ‘eat drink stay’ places you can find in nice rural areas. I decided to stop in Sible Hedingham (not a control) for rice pudding and smoothie, I was beginning to feel empty again and didn’t want to hold until Saffron Walden. It was around this kind of time where you begin to feel that you are functionally piling food in to the body purely for fuel. Arriving into Saffron Walden I was surprised as I had in my mind that it would be a lot smaller than it actually was. I found a Starbucks that was in the process of closing up and got more food, this was necessary as it was around 18:45 and I had a long stretch up to the North Norfolk coast to tackle, with potentially limited food opportunities. So I had a hot sandwich, some crisps, some juice and a strong coffee. There were some kids on skateboards enjoying the quiet shopping streets of the town by not being so quiet trying to do skateboard tricks.
The persistence and strength of the wind was an element that I had to battle with until just shy of 250Km – until I turned North out of Saffron Walden. It was exhausting. As the sun became low in the sky I turned to music for the first time in the ride, I popped my ambient headphones on and really took a lift from the music that I was listening to. I carried on into the night with the motivating and mind distracting music.
Finally, with the wind on my back and it was great to be rolling at a higher speed and I had been kind of looking forward to this “back straight” heading north up to Wells-next-the-sea. Next control was in Red Lodge and I was looking out for a truck stop café to control at which I found, but was closed. Fortunately there was a pub next door and I popped in to control there. The bar staff were surprised to see a guy in cycling gear walk in around 21:30 and we had a quick chat about men in lycra. I just bought a drink carton to have later on. One way system in Red Lodge was followed and I was heading north and east along a very narrow road which I didn’t have confidence in as being the correct way. My Garmin had frozen, so I had to restart it and fortunately the ride remained live, so I loaded up the route again and all was well. I was on the correct road but it just seemed very small in comparison to my expectation of the map, anyway I pressed onto the A11 where I was expecting to find a cycle path next to the road – there was none so I had to very quickly ride on the A11 to Barton Mills roundabout (only around 500M). The calendar event for this ride controls at Barton Mills as opposed to Red Lodge, and with the 24hr services available at Barton Mills I can see why. I stopped for my last feed at the 24hr McDonalds, where I ended up having quite a long stop due to a busy restaurant, eating time, the need for a toilet stop and a phone call to home.
Leaving Barton Mills services it was A roads with reasonably low traffic, so progress up through USAF base Lakenheath, Brandon, Mundford and Swaffham was pretty good and seemed to pass well. Fatigue really hit me when I had a brief pause in Swaffham, where I drunk the carton of juice I had purchased in the Red Lodge pub control, I was very tired and had another 25Km to go to Fakenham, where I would fill up my water bottles. The remainder of the main road to Fakenham was one I knew, but couldn’t recall it well in the dark, any gradient in the road caused me to slow down considerably, but I kept on moving forward. Arriving on the outskirts of Fakenham the garage where I was expecting to fill water bottles up was shut for refurbishment, so I had to press on to the coast on small local roads. Only 1 or 2 taxis passed me on the way up to Wells, and arriving in Wells it was almost 2am and I could not find any shops open or available ATM’s in the town. Seaside towns at night are cool and I find them very atmospheric. There was no one around at all and the boats moored up on the quay were just gently bobbing up and down making light banging noises against the quay, I could have happily stayed a while and soaked up the atmosphere, but I really wanted to press on to the finish.
I knew that the wind would not be my friend as soon as I left Wells, as I would be heading back South and East to Buxton. The road was instantly hard work. It was very narrow and full of loose stones in the middle and the odd difficult to navigate in the dark pothole here and there, and it just seemed endless. Eventually, I started to see signs for Blickling Hall which was heartening as that meant I was getting closer to Buxton, and it was around this time that the hedgerows started to make unusual shapes in my mind. I saw imaginary wild boar, herons and snakes all very real one moment and then very branch/bush like the next. This is a function of feeling exhausted and in need of sleep. Passing Blickling Hall, I could see nothing of the National Trust property in the dense cloudy darkness, straight onto the familiar roundabout at Aylsham and then off on the final stretch to Buxton. Passing the West-East road that I travel on regularly when cycling back from Stamford to Buxton, I knew the finish was imminent.
Finally arriving in Buxton, I stopped next to the village sign and took a photo of my bike, just incase the ATM was still out of order. Ride finished at 03:54. I moved to the village shop and found that the ATM was functioning, so I went to print out a balance sheet for the control. Annoyingly, the ATM would not print a balance and I assumed it was out of paper. I arrived back at my in-laws house, very tired and pleased with the ride. I put my bike away and then showered before getting into bed to sleep.
In any case, the ride was a success and I was very pleased to have finished without major incident, in a reasonable time (well within the time limit of 27hrs at 21hrs 48mins) and in reasonable physical shape.
With this ride I had increased my longest ride in a day from 404Km (251 miles) to 422Km (262 miles). A tough ride, particularly when ridden solo. I sent my brevet card straight back to the perms secretary as agreed previously and within a couple of days the ride was validated and up on the AUK Website. Onto the next ride, planning for the 600.
