Today was Mick's last ride before he disappeared for 3 months down under to visit his rellies. The weather for the ride was gorgeous considering it was mid November - the sun was out in force along with 28 Easy Riders and shorts were still being worn. We all headed out together own Glebe Avenue and on towards Bocking. Here we split with Mick taking the shorter ride and Peter the longer one. The longer ride headed towards Beazley End and then turned right to Gosfield. Then a right down Russell's Road to Halstead and then right in to Oak Road. The building work going on there is big! From Oak Road we headed to Greenstead Green Farm Shop for our break - on the way we followed 5 deer who would
Mick, Gifford and I attended Braintree Sports Award as BER was nominated for the Physical Activity Project of the Year/Changing Lives around Physical Activity Award. The evening was opened and hosted by the Chair of Active Braintree John Wood. There must have been 200 plus people there and whilst we didn't expect to win, it was nice to be there. From the title you'll realise we did win the award of Physical Activity of the Year and it really was a great surprise (Gifford was absolutely convinced we would be runners up). Both Sport in Confidence and Braintree Town Hall Tea Dance were equally worthy winners. We all trooped up to collect the award and luckily there was no need for an acceptance
It was with some trepidation, that 3 (Julie, Jo and me) of us undertook the bikeability training course that Mick offered on Saturday. Having met at Cycles Uk, we quickly rode off but not very far, in fact only to the relative quiet of Clare Road. Here, we were taught the correct road positioning when approaching T-junctions from major and minor roads, turning both to the left and the right. All fairly basic stuff, but this training formed the building blocks for the rest of the course, and we next attempted negotiating roundabouts! We were shown the correct road positioning that we should adopt, depending on the number of exits and the number of lanes in the roads. With the weather starting
Mick leading his last Friday ride before departing these shores must have had Australia firmly in his mind as he took us to the outback of Essex, Essex lanes that none of us had cycled before and even down under the A12 in several locations. Starting as usual in Market Place Mick and the rest of us headed out along London Rd past Notley village turning towards Fairstead and then onto Witham. At times we stopped to admire the wonderful colours that the late autumn sunshine had to offer across our English land. Trees giving up their leaves in various shades, farm labourers re-sculpturing the earth with their heavy machinery and seeing the new growth of fresh sown crops, crops that will feed us
Having just returned from a mini break in French France the Wednesday before (just a spot of mountain endurance training, joking of course !! ) understandably I was looking forward to the camaraderie and exercise of our weekly Wednesday ride on the 1st November. Earlier in the week temperatures were becoming ever more autumnal, however, shorts were the order of the day for me. We numbered at least twenty riders (Ed - 28 according to Mick's register) and set off in a southerly direction towards Chelmsford. As always a couple of miles into the ride we split into two groups. Having elected myself to undertake the longer ride, we cycled through the pretty hamlets of Willows Green, Hartford End,
