With our tandem finally liberated from the snow and ice, and being away from home, my husband Paul and I decided yesterday to take advantage of one of the many benefits of being CTC members by riding with new friends on new roads. Ride, that is, with friendly complete strangers, on completely strange roads that we knew they would show to us.
We had a cold and wet start, but the weathermen had assured us that the rain would pass and so with enthusiasm borne of cabin fever we packed waterproofs and set off. Against a strong headwind we battled our way to Chelmsford, using mainly main roads because we knew no better. At the bus station there we met up with four other riders, and guided by our leader, Martin, we set off with the wind behind us.
We didn’t know what to expect. Essex is decidedly flatter than Shropshire and there’s a lot more traffic, but good company makes up for a great deal and CTC riders always find the best routes (and the best tea stops, obviously). Our new companions were lovely people and like us, they were riding with sluggish legs due to a lack of winter riding. So we were well strung out, particularly on the several undulations which the route threw at us.
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| Outside the cafe at Heybridge Basin |
We stopped for tea at Heybridge Basin. Though only about two miles as the crow flies from our temporary home, the river and canal crossings make it a very long walk away and so we hadn’t previously been there. It’s a place to go again though - the cafe overlooked the sea lock where the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation Canal enters the Blackwater Estuary, and it overlooked Northey Island, with its fabulous birdlife, too. With yachts bobbing against the breakwater in the high tide, it was a fabulous place to see.
Moving on, we climbed through Maldon, a proper hill climb by anyone’s standards, and a busy road too. Riding out of Maldon we passed the turning for our temporary home but we held our resolve to continue to the lunch stop, which was at a pub at East Hanningfield.
The lanes we took were bordered by gullies and often also by narrow wooded strips. Every gully was flooded - in this low lying arable farming land there is much ancient wisdom about drainage, and evidence of it is everywhere. We saw hardly any flooded fields, the water management seems to be effective enough to avoid the worst.
Two other riders from places other than Chelmsford had joined us at Heybridge. One of these, a man called Dave, rode with us and guided us back to our temporary home, on his way to his own home. He was a remarkable man - only five months ago he was in hospital for several weeks recovering from multiple fractures of hip and pelvis, caused by a collision with a car. I believe this was his first ride since the accident. I was astonished by the lack of evidence of his injuries.
We were home by four pm, having had a fabulous day. In the garden of our temporary home by the river, it was obvious that the high tide had brought the river higher than we had ever seen it, and almost into the garden. So I went out with my camera at high tide today to take the shots which follow. I’m not sure I shall ever see such a dramatic river system as this ever again.
This is the same tree which is in the snowy picture in my previous blog entry. But how different the river looks!
Taken from the far side of the river, the path here is underwater, and the two distant trees stand on a small island which is completely covered.
This is the main weir at high tide and in flood - The point from where I took my "low tide shot" in the previous blog is underwater.
This is the weir from the other side - I was frightened to cross the bridge, so thunderous was the water! In the background you can see the overflowing canal lock.
No wonder they shut the canal to pleasure boaters in winter!
My first ride after the enforced break was a shortish, flattish ride on the tandem. I coughed and spluttered throughout, and was exhausted by the half-way mark. But my husband’s strong legs looked after me, though he was only a week ahead of me in his recovery, and he’d been just as exhausted as I was only a week earlier. 
Besides that little fact, it was a fairly uninspiring ride in dull and damp weather which deteriorated as we pedalled. It waited until we were home to start raining though, and then it pelted down. 
But it’s not by accident that our flood risk is low. When we moved into this house, I privately lamented its lack of proximity to water. There’s a little stream by us (some would call it a drain) but it’s very little indeed, and no risk to us or our neighbours. To stand by a proper river I have to cycle a good few miles, and descend quite a few metres. It’s not much, but that small descent, and the ten accursed steps between the street and my house (which I struggle to carry my bike up), keep us free from the risk of water ingress. This is something we considered carefully before we parted with our money, and we will again, if ever we move.
There’s always a challenge aspect to winter riding. Cold muscles don’t perform as well as warm ones, so it always seems like hard work. The sheer quantity of clothes you need to wear feel like a handicap in themselves. And even if the weather is dry, it doesn’t mean that the roads will be dry too, as water from past rainstorms pools in the roadway and can hang around for days if the fields are too saturated to allow water to drain away. 
Soon I found myself in an avenue of oak trees, still clinging to their leaves, but dropping enough to leave a bronze edging to both sides of the road and brightening the otherwise straw and grey coloured verges. The trees themselves, sturdy and magnificent, were swathed in a cloak of rich bronze with shards of red giving form and depth. My phone camera couldn’t catch a fraction of it. 
Riding along Wenlock Edge, a flock of migrating birds flew over. As the sun pushed its way through the mist, the mist’s last wisps clung to the clods of earth left by the farmer’s plough, as though the very earth was steaming. Woodsmoke hung in the air, giving a homely smell of the hearth and a promise of warmth at the end of the day. Golden leaves on the road made for skidding bicycle wheels, but they also gave an impression of riding over a road paved with gold. 
Money grows on trees - or so it seems, when you look at the golden coins hanging from the silver birch in autumn. Copper and bronze hang from other trees, and some leaves are so red that they seem to be in flower rather than in the autumn die back. Nuts and berries drip from branches, though the squirrels make short work of those cobb nuts left by the farmer’s clippers. From the holly, hawthorn and dog rose hang rubies, from the snowberry, pearls.
