The British Talking Championships! 21/06/2023

There seemed to be a plethora of riders this week - there were about 12 riders on the long ride, 16 on the medium and about 6 on the short ride. It was sunny to start and became hot.

Ann split the medium ride, and we pedalled off up Bocking Church Street, and headed east to Tumblers Green. I was struggling to visualise all the turns (scrambled eggs for brains!) so needed to regularly stop to check the map. My group really did not seem to mind, as there was constant good-tempered chatting all the way along. I don’t suffer from ‘rigor mortis of the tongue’ but my group made my abilities look run-of-the-mill! We pedalled north across fulsome wheat and barley fields, which demonstrated why East Anglia is known as the breadbasket of England. Except, bread needs hard wheat (high gluten) and Britain only grows soft wheat (low gluten), used in cakes and biscuits, so actually these fields should be called the cake tin of England. Doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it?

At Gosfield Antiques, we all fell on tea and buns and made a good job of rehydrating. Health & safety tip for the day is about how to take on board fluids when you don’t feel like it. Any high fluid food is good on a hot day. Soup, fruit, ice cream but particularly jelly. Jelly is effectively solid water. It’s a good pudding to dish up whenever it’s hot, particularly for children and older people when they are resisting drinking enough.

As Julie and I were doing bike training at Doer Cycles, as a group we pedalled west to Beazley End, and then Jim D and Alan led the rest of the group back via Bovingdon Lane. Julie and I rode to Doer Cycles at Blake End to meet Gifford and Peter M for a training session. I can thoroughly recommend Dave, from Doer, (pronounced Do-er because he does things). I found him generous with his knowledge, full of tips to enhance various levels of competence with bike maintenance (from the total incompetents like me, to the more skilled like Gifford!). One hour was enough as I could not have processed any more information. Thank you, Dave.

25 miles 10mph Well done to all riders, especially the two whose electric bikes were being serviced and who had to be fully self-propelled on manuals!

Cathy MacTaggart