2012-09-17 52 0
| Mon 17 Sep 2012 in Cambridge, UK: 52.5561887, 0.5024519 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Contents
Location
The corner of a field deep into the Fens, just south of Stoke Ferry and southeast of Downham Market.
Participants
Plans
Ben is tentatively planning to cycle from Cambridge, setting off at lunchtime and planning for an approximately 4pm hashpoint (give or take an hour). However, this will make for a 125 km cycle (which is about 50% longer than anything he has done this year), and he has to be at work in the morning. The final decision on whether to take the bike or the car will therefore be made after work on Monday lunchtime, mainly depending on energy levels and the weather. If he doesn't bike it, he'll almost definitely drive instead.
Route planning is easier than you might think over this distance. There are two obvious routes -- through Ely and Littleport, and through Burwell and Mildenhall. The former is 56.5 km, although avoiding the busy A10 single-carriageway trunk road, which is unpleasant to cycle along, increases this to 62 km; the latter is 64.5 km and uses minor roads all the way. Ben knows the first third of each route very well (indeed, the route to Ely has been cycled twice this week already); the rest will be done by guesswork, GPS and a Cambridgeshire road atlas. The Ely-Littleport route offers more opportunities to bail out and go home by train, so Ben plans to return from the hashpoint along this route, but go via Mildenhall, which is less familiar and therefore more interesting.
Expedition
- Just leaving. Weather sunny and warm, slightly breezy. Not bad for cycling. ETA hashpoint 5pm; ETA home 8 - 8:30pm. Slightly apprehensive. — Benjw {talk} 08:55, 17 September 2012 (EDT)
- Success, but I feel totally dreadful. It took just over seven hours in the end; the two miles either side of the hashpoint took nearly an hour due to terrain, and there was a headwind the whole way back. I enjoyed the first two hours, then the third hour was tiresome, and the last four hours were a heavy slog. Distance cycled 126.5 km. I am never getting on my bike again. — Benjw {talk} 16:45, 17 September 2012 (EDT)
- Feeling a little less dreadful now, but I can't get to sleep because my legs are full of nettle stings! Aarggghhhhh... — Benjw {talk} 18:43, 17 September 2012 (EDT)
Where I went
I don't have a tracklog, but this Google map shows my round trip -- the eastern route was the way out to the hashpoint; the western route was the way back.
