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| Lured by the promise of a flat ride |
Today, Pete B led a surprising, unconventional ride, which he described as a flat ride to Deal. 23 of us joined him. It was a beautiful route, but also educational. We came to realise, through our experiences on the ride, that there are many different types of flat roads.
Some of the flat roads carefully curated by Pete had the strange sensation of drag, of being almost held back by an invisible force. It was tiring to ride along these flat roads. We knew they were flat, because Pete had told us so himself.
Other flat roads almost willed you along with little or no effort; in some extreme cases people had the sensation of speeding up without pedalling - for a few this was so disconcerting they felt compelled to put the brakes on, despite being on a completely flat road. Such a strange sensation, which seemed to defy rational explanation.
Our destination was the east coast town of Deal, the inspiration behind many marketing and political campaigns, tables, and card games.
Instead of going directly east, Pete's route curved to the south to find a lot of these special flat roads. We rattled through places like Ratling, but by Frogham, some people were feeling a bit croaky. Coffee was needed, so Pete stopped to look at the map. Deal was a good deal further on, but amazingly, there was a heritage railway nearby; Eythorne station on the East Kent Railway had a cafe, situated in HRH Queen Elizabeth's rail car, used to transport her in style to & from Sandringham. We watched the Easter Bunny Special (train) depart, enjoyed coffee & cake, and viewed the exhibits, including a carriage specially built to transport elephants. Those were the days! The coaches were used to take elephants to the seaside, since elephants in the wild and captivity enjoy swimming. The coaches had to have large, specially designed pouches to store their trunks.
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| 11s stop |
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| Aboard the Queen's royal cafe train |
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| One for the railway enthusiasts |
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| Elephant carriage |
On to Deal, which has an impressive castle, called Deal Castle, the seaside, and a good choice of eating places. After lunch we rode north along a rather sketchy coastal cycle path, and then inland to Sandwich, famously the place where the Earl of Sandwich invented (and named) the Sandwich. They're pretty hot on naming stuff round there.
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| Deal Castle |
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| The sun has got his windproof on - at Deal |
Now we had a tail wind and we were on the Thanet Levels, an area of low-lying marshland between the so-called Isle of Thanet and the rest of Kent. These flat roads were of the traditional sort, and we were flying along heading back to Canterbury. Amazingly there was virtually no traffic. Roads on the levels zig-zagged around the fields in right angles, and it was awesome to see twenty plus riders in different shades of high vis, streaming across the landscape.
A bit later on, we bumped into Simon & Jen coming the other way to meet us. Luckily no-one was hurt this time, and we rode back to the hotel together. It was an excellent and fun day out, a big group held together by a lot of corner marking, great leading by Pete and back marking by Diane.
(Video from Jen)
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| Simon and Jen's off-road ride |
Later that evening I was invidiously picked upon by some of the others, for no good reason other than it was my birthday, and unfairly made to do a speech. It was a good opportunity to thank Helen and Pete for leading lovely rides, and Lilian for taking over the organisation of the Easter Tour and putting on such an enjoyable event.
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| Thank you! |
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