Sa Calobra

For the second time this year CTC South Westerners had made the headlines in ‘Bike Watchers World’,“Early migration of CTCSW’s spotted over the Channel heading south!”

Professor Ian Stein specializing in avian cerebrum evolutionis at the ‘University of Information No One Wants to Know About’ explains,

“Usually it is not until May or June that we witness the now familiar fluffy yellow and blue streaks across the Channel sky, but this year unlike their sparrow cousins, a small group had taken to the skies remarkably early”.  The audience full of keen bike watchers went silent for a second and then all hands went up with a plethora of questions… there was a real buzz in the air, a sense that something truly remarkable had been witnessed.  “Could it be due to climate change?” “…what about changing feeding habits?” “…had they been spooked by their arch nemesis?” (catus Tomas and Co).  And so the questions went on.  Professor Ian Stein did his best to answer, “…it could be any one or all of these things… what we know for certain is that they continue to search for and congregate at eateries… in particular cafés with an abundance of cakes not least chocolate which seems to be a prime favourite.  This continues to be their raison d’etre as confirmed by bike watchers in Mallorca who spotted the distinctive yellow and blue markings gathered and hovering about a local ‘pasteleria’ in the vicinity of Palma.”

 

Pedro

 

Pedro in action

 Little did we know we were the cause of so much excitement in the bike watchers’ universe.  The main grouping landed in the southern part of Mallorca in the outskirts of Palma.  Sabina and myself swooshed into the Port of Soller where a little to the north resided ‘Sa Calobra’.  On our way to collect our bikes I noticed a canine quadruped staring at us behind a front garden wall.  I surmised that he was smiling at us and wanted to make friends.  I started to wander over to make this amiable fellow’s acquaintance… it was then that a local elderly gentleman came running over to me and grabbed my arm.  Pedro he explained was a trained guard dog and had recently swiftly dispatched some rather wicked would be robbers to “l’hospital” with some rear wound injuries in need of urgent attention.  I looked over at Pedro as his eyes became ever more alert as they locked onto me… “Hmmm” I thought and we walked on.

We reached the esplanade and there resting peacefully taking the early morning sun we saw a sweet little cat.  We patted Lola who kept her eyes closed and took no notice of us unlike Pedro who I noticed was watching me.  I took nice Lola’s presence to be a good omen and she certainly made up for nasty Pedro.

Lola

Lemons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 (At this point in her proof reading… after noticing what I believe were a couple of yawns… Sabina commented, “… is this supposed to be write up for our bike ride or your autobiography as the modern day Saint Francis of Assisi?”  I took the hint and so dear reader I’ll fast forward to the ride but I can’t help but share a couple of photos of lemons, oranges and an 800 year old olive tree).

Oranges in February

 

Sa Calobra is the name of the little port at the bottom of the climb but to reach it you have to cycle up the other side of the mountain (Mont Puig being the highest point in Mallorca) and then  down, very down, a long winding road to the port where you will meet numerous stray cats lounging on the sea front and taking no notice of the tourists in the cafes.

Sunbathing cats

 

You then have to cycle back up whence you came.  I underestimated how hard it would be and overestimated my own strength (not helped by the fact that I hadn’t eaten enough energy food by far).  Sabina rode to the highest point and very sensibly stopped there in a nature park.

There she would wait for me to go down to Sa Calobra and back up.  The cycle hire lady’s words would prove prophetic… she had said to Sabina, with a smile, “you can relax whilst you watch him suffer!”  And suffer I did.  I’ve marked on the mountain profile where I suffered, conked out, stopped  and worried that I was not going to make it.  On the way back up towards the top my leg muscles had reached their limit… no amount of willing on my part made any difference. 

I christened this phenomenon ‘BMS’, Blancmange Muscle Syndrome.  Yes I could will my legs to push but it was like pushing into blancmange… very little happened and so I had to stop… and allow some energy to trickle back into my legs… but there was very little energy going and I had to stop and pause three, four perhaps five times.  It was embarrassing to have other riders that I had overtaken lower down now come past me as I stood watching and wondering why.  I needed something to get me up the last kilometer or two to where Sabina was waiting.

Sa Calobra is on the far side of the mountains

 

 

 

 

Inspired by Pedro

 

 

 

I thought of Pedro… of having to cycle for my life… and with that I just about made it.  Sabina as cool as cucumber waved at me…and as I reached her and explained she made some positive remarks about my efforts seeing that my obviously rumpled ego needed propping up.  But soon we were on our bikes, wheels spinning so fast as we descended the heights.  It was a fantastically long downhill freewheeling ride back to the bike shop.

As we walked back to our place Pedro was there watching us and I thanked him… from a distance… for helping me up that climb… I think he smiled back and even if I had only imagined it I like Pedro.
As we relaxed that evening in a local bar with a cool drink we heard playing in the background the Mallorquin singer Maria del Mar Bonet.  I highly recommend that you listen to her to reignite that very special Mallorcan feel good factor.

~ Bernard

Autumn tour in Essex

En-route to another adventure

Finally, some dry weather after a pretty rubbish summer.  I had a couple of free days, so decided to try out Essex for size,  a solo for camping trip.  I had a long ambition to try out riding in Epping Forest, so that was the first ten (it's big!) miles.  Then north in quiet lanes to a campsite on a farm, Pightle Farm, at the corner of Essex, Cambs and Herts.   Also the highest point in Essex, I was disappointed to find out later.

That was the plan.  A variety of trains took me and my bike to Wood Street at the south of Epping Forest and I set off into the beautiful forest, wide avenues between oak trees full of autumn colour.   There are many paths and some are better than others.  After finding myself on a very muddy, path where my wheels kept sliding sideways, I did a bit of walking then a bit back on the road, before finding a better path, wide and gravelly.   It's beautiful,  but I should have picked my route more carefully.

Epping Forest tracks

Epping itself marks the north end of the forest, and was full of queues of traffic, and lots of families shopping for plastic Halloween tat.  It was 1pm and I had nearly 40 miles to do before sunset, so it was a quick lunch outside Greggs before setting off into the countryside.

From there on, it was like a different world.  Up the west side of Essex.  No traffic, small lanes, no towns, no cafés (there was a solitary Londis), and beautiful countryside with the odd lovely thatched cottage here and there.   It had an off the beaten track feel.   I expected it to be hilly but it was more rolling countryside, quite high up with extensive views.  I went quite close to Stansted Airport at one stage, but I only sat two planes landing, and no Airport traffic.

Essex lanes and villages

A very enjoyable,  relaxed day of cycling with quiet weather, no wind, mostly cloudy but with the odd sunny spell lighting up the colours.  As dusk fell, lights started coming on in the thatched cottages,  making them look even more cosy.  I got to the farm just before sunset (4.30pm), pitched the tent and high-tailed it to the local pub, the Red Cow.  It looked pricey, £30 for a main course, so I had bought a steak slice for my tea, but when I got there, they were offering Tuesday fish & chips for £10.25.  Delicious.

Last light

I spent a happy evening ear-wigging the other customers swapping stories, (one of whom was a Dolly Parton tribute singer, and another was a close friend of Steve Marriott of the Small Faces), and re-hydrating, before heading back to my solitary dark tent.  The campsite closes on 31 Oct and I was the only customer tonight.  Except ... I had company.  I disturbed a mouse when I returned.   It clearly had designs on my steak slice.

Day 2: Wednesday 

My camping spot

In bed by 8pm, and slept till 7am.   Not bad.  I thought I heard the mouse again, so made a noise like a lion and scared him off.  Anyway, I'd hidden the food.  Steak slice for breakfast (not as nice as it sounds), packed, washed, and away by 8.30.

The plan today is to - you've guessed it - head back south, via a few towns I liked the sound of, a bit further east, to Shenfield, the end of the Elizabeth line.  Same weather: no wind, grey skies, 14 degrees maximum.

It was decidedly hilly.  After riding seven miles to Saffron Walden, I'd clocked up 200 metres of climbing.   Saffron Walden is a nice town with plenty of important looking old buildings.   More hills took me to Thaxted, a real gem of a place with beautiful old buildings.  It reminded me of Shaftesbury with its hilltop church.  It even had an ancient cobbled Street, like Gold Hill.

Ye olde car park at Saffron Walden

Thaxted

Still Thaxted

Elevenses was at Great Dunmow, which wasn't quite as great as its name after Thaxted and Saffron Walden.  After Dunmow, things looked up.  I was back on the high plain, on quiet lanes wriggling across the fields without any apparent logic.  Easy riding to the outskirts of Chelmsford, and then the last ten miles was back on the lanes, a few colourful woods and pretty villages.   I expected Shenfield to be just a built-up suburb of Brentwood,  but in fact it looked an attractive place, probably up-and-coming with the arrival of the Elizabeth line.

Cycle lane to Wittle, near Chelmsford

Blackmore

Arrived at Shenfield Station just before 3pm, hone before 5pm - well done TfL!  It has been a very enjoyable exploration of parts of Essex.  Highly recommended if you fancy trying it: there are alternatives to camping in Saffron Walden, Cambridge, or Royston, all nearby.

Tour de Lincolnshire, day 5

It was a good night in my campsite with en suite pub.  I was wakened from a deep sleep by a roar from my noisy neighbours at RAF Coningsby,  off on a midnight assignation, but otherwise, I slept well on a very warm night, with a few light rain showers.  The rain had blown away by morning  and the sun was out as I struggled to pack the tent without anything flying away in a fresh westerly wind.

My route today is an arc north and west to Lincoln, via Market Rasen and nowhere else.   I had very definitely left the flat fens now and was in the Lincolnshire Wolds, nice mixed countryside and quite hilly.  Breakfast in a caff on the main Lincoln to Skegness road, very busy on a Friday morning, and then up on the high (ish) hills along the ridges with great views all the way to Lincoln, at least 20 miles away.  The main feature was the gusty wind, which was often in my face, so I was pleased to leave the wolds.   I passed through Scramblesby, which would have been a great site for an RAF base, or perhaps an egg farm.   So many place names ending in -by, meaning village, from the Danelaw days of the 9th -11th centuries.

High-level route - The Lindsey Trail

At lunch at Donington-on-Bail, I met a tandem couple in a lovely post office cafe; both built for low air resistance, very small and wiry but full of stories of their cycling.  The chap recommended a steep hill in Lincoln city to me, but I wasn't all that receptive, I'm afraid. 

After lunch I headed up to Market Rasen, another town with Market in the title.  Nice scenery on the way there, but still very windy,  and when I got there for early tea, hot and tired, I found I couldn't face eating anything.  It was a shock - I've never had that problem before.  Market Rasen didn't live up to all the other Market... towns I've visited on this trip.

Not one, but two surprise fords

#2

Probably a foot deep

There was nothing for it but to slog onwards to Lincoln, mostly into the wind.   It was flat, and the high hedges meant there was not much of a view, but every so often they created a wind tunnel effect.   It was a 15 mile endurance test.

Eventually I got to Lincoln, and it is a gorgeous city.   The cathedral is huge, difficult to photograph but lovely in the late afternoon sun.  There's a castle, and a whole olde world area of shops on cobbled streets, including Steep Hill.  So steep I didn't dare cycle down it with a loaded bike.  At the bottom is the modern shopping area centred on the river, with no less than three Wetherspoons.   I didn't have time to try them all.

Cathedral 

Part of the castle

Steep Hill

Riverside

This is the last day of my trip.   I'm getting the train home this evening, having ridden myself to a standstill.  I feel that I've covered a lot of ground in Leicestershire,  and less so in Lincolnshire,  but I've also ridden up the Lincolnshire coast, so I know that bit from 2013.

I've enjoyed exploring some different countryside,  and visiting some towns that I'd heard, and some I hadn't.   I loved the roads with almost no traffic, and the very friendly people everywhere.

Post Adventure

Stopping train to nowhere

I got an advance single on a quiet evening train direct to London,  and my bike and I were all sitting comfortably ready to leave, when we were all told that the train wasn't going, due to overhead line damage.  Plan B was a slow train to Nottingham, then a slow train to Loughborough, and then an even later train to London... arriving 00:30.  It even made the news: Rail Chaos Causes Travel Nightmare, according to the YorkMix website.   Three rather rushed platform changes and boarding three busy trains with a bike and panniers was not part of my plan, but it somehow worked.  I forced my legs to cycle home through a quiet London, still warm at 1am and a very pleasant way to end the tour.

Day 4 · Day 5

Tour de *Lincolnshire*, day 4

I'm in Lincolnshire!  My route today:   first 50 miles; flat.  Then a few hills.  It's all fens, straight roads, a few ditches draining the land, views for miles.

With a following wind, I'd soon knocked off seven miles to an awakening Spalding:  nice town centre and a good breakfast cafe.  The sky gradually became overcast as I rode north east, another twenty miles to Boston.  It was nice - not featureless, but I didn't feel the need to stop to take any photos either.

Spalding

I've ridden through Boston before, while riding up the east coast.   I recognised the church tower from miles away, like a lighthouse across the fens.  Boston has a nice spacious town centre, and I discovered a quaint 'old town' just by the river and the church, with narrow cobbled streets and little old pubs.  No time to try them though.   The old town gave way to an old railway line,  now a cycle trail, the Water Rail Way, aka NCN route 1, following the river Witham all the way to Lincoln.  

Boston

Old town

Water Rail Way

I followed it north, part tarmac trail and part road, all the way to  Woodhall Spa, about twenty miles which seemed to go by quickly with nice views across the land and the river.  Also a few invisible fighter jets above the clouds, from RAF Coningsby.  Probably stealth fighters.

Stealth fighters

At Woodhall Spa it had started to drizzle, and I found an old time cafe, with old time crockery and prices.  It was a nice town, a bit reminiscent of a seaside town but without the sea.  Plenty of reasons to visit.

After a long ride in the fens, it was nice to have some different countryside.  I left along a wooded lane and was then back on open farmland meadows and cornfields.

I'd found a campsite in a pub for tonight (well, in the pub garden): the Red Lion at East Kirby.   I had to pitch the tent in the rain - not ideal - but the campsite had good facilities including an onsite pub with good value food.

There was a wartime RAF base at East Kirby, with Lancaster bombers, and the (disused) airfield is still here.  There's also an aviation museum with a Lancaster bomber.

Day 3 · Day 4 · Day 5

Tour de Leicester, day 3

I went to bed in my hilltop tent after a fiery sunset.  The night was cooler, and I was woken in the dark by what I think was a rabbit behind the tent, giving a yip-yip-yip alarm call.   In the morning I headed north east towards Melton Mowbray, 20 miles away.  I wasn't hopeful of finding breakfast, but just outside the pretty village of Wymeswold there was an industrial park with a cafe & bakery, serving a mouth-watering pain au raisin.

Sunset

11s

I was back in the "crinkly" landscape of the Leicestershire Wolds, zig-zagging in and out of the Soar valley.  The Soar is the definitive river of Leicestershire,  rising just over the border to the south west in Warwickshire,  and soaring downhill to a big exit to the north east, where it soon gets absorbed by the river Trent.

Leicestershire villages

I had nearly completed a circle around Leicester, as I saw signs to Frisby again, but instead I chose the delights of Melton Mowbray,  a big town with a nice feel - plenty of pedestrianised shopping, also Ye Olde Pie Shoppe where no doubt you can buy a souvenir pie or two.  After a two-course elevenses, I headed east and north across the rolling countryside, and the county border, to Grantham, in Lincolnshire.   On the way I passed through Woolsthorpe,  where Isaac Newton invented gravity in the plague lockdown of 1666.

Apart from a lovely entry to town - several miles downhill followed by a riverside cycle path - I found it a bit disappointing.  After a late lunch in Morrisons, I was ready to head off - but where to?

It's funny how days can differ.  Yesterday,  I was all in after 50 miles, but today after 50 miles to Grantham,  I felt I could manage the 25 miles to the next potential campsite, south east in Bourne.

After an initial climb out of town, the trend was downhill, south through little villages and more harvest scenes, combine harvesting, baling the straw, muck spreading and then ploughing.  Busy time for farmers (and the cows, I imagine).

Lincolnshire

Tea stop

The last few miles to Bourne were off-road, starting with a dodgy track and then a better forest track, which made a nice change from the empty lanes.  I saw more people in the forest (three) than I saw on the roads between Grantham and Bourne.  I may suggest this to the organisers of London-Edinburgh-London,  as it would make a nice change from all those boring roads and add a bit of spice to the route, especially at night time.

I rather dashed through Bourne as it was getting late.  There were two campsites on the other side of town, quite a long way out as it transpired, five miles on a long straight windy road.  I stopped at the first, and it was lovely.  The campsite manager, also called Simon , was very welcoming, showed me to a sheltered pitch, and even offered me a ready meal to cook for my evening meal.   I declined, but he also suggested an excellent pub just (3 miles) down the road.

84 miles in all, and 1000m of climbing, so a big day fully justifying a big evening meal and plenty of re-hydration.

Day 2 · Day 3 · Day 4