{"id":677,"date":"2012-10-07T12:10:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-07T12:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/?p=677"},"modified":"2024-02-03T12:40:57","modified_gmt":"2024-02-03T12:40:57","slug":"solo-ride-to-little-dunmow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/?p=677","title":{"rendered":"Solo ride to Little Dunmow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I set off at 8.30 and thereby used the “nasty” roads before the motorists were out of bed and into their football kit. I was aided and abetted by some flood water hanging around. This was the aptly-named Watery Lane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The ford along Sporhams Lane was higher than I remember seeing it, and I used the footbridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was a glorious sunny morning and Riffhams and its sheep looked very fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A view towards the city of Chelmsford. At this point I was engaged in conversation by three ladies out for a morning walk. It seemed that they had the ambition to cover many miles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Great Graces was also in a fine fettle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Chelmer was very high, and flowed over both lock gates at Paper Mill Lock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s unusual to find such foaming torrents on this normally placid river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Tea Room did not disappoint. That is fruit and chocolate flapjack – about 2000 calories’ worth. There were huge chunks of white chocolate nestling amongst glac\u00e9 cherries… phwooaar!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There was an attractive shimmering rime over the ploughed fields – dew-bespangled spiders’ webs!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Easters – the 21st Century Tudor mansion in Barnston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The trig point along Warren Road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An excellent day out. Lunch, at the Flitch, in Little Dunmow, saw me eating alone in what was clearly a proper “local”. I’m sure everyone else was a regular, and there was a splendid conversation on the table to my left in which an old gaffer was holding forth about the evils of Thatcher and Blair, in a really fine Essex accent, of the type that’s all too rare these days. There will be a WARTY to this pub ere long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bit short of wildlife. There was a little egret at Stambridge Mills early on, a fox, and a weasel somewhere near Danbury. Oh, and a kestrel somewhere else. Significantly, I saw neither swallows nor house martins, in complete contrast to Thursday, when there were quite a few. I saw at least one green woodpecker, heard at least one more, and heard a greater spotted or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I arrived home a little before 6 p.m having completed 81 miles. I passed last year’s milage total at some stage during the day, and brought my weekly total up to about 185 miles. Still on target for a 7000 mile year…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I set off at 8.30 and thereby used the “nasty” roads before the motorists were out of bed and into their football kit. I was aided and abetted by some flood water hanging around. This was the aptly-named Watery Lane. The ford along Sporhams Lane was higher than I remember seeing it, and I used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,11,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-essex","category-yacf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":690,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions\/690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}