To celebrate or lament (delete as appropriate) not getting a place in the ride London sportive SNCC have decided to offer their own alternative that will be henceforth known as “Far from the madd(en)ing crowd”.
We will look to offer many of the benefits of the RL100 although unfortunately there won’t be any medals handed out, we could probably stretch to some stickers if there's a demand.
It will feature the following:
- It will be on roads, albeit ones that are open
- It will be signed - well there will be road signs
- It will be timed - must bring own timing device
- There will be feed stations - must pay for food consumed
The plan will be to head out to Finchingfield in Essex, leaving the square at 08:00 heading out through Fowlmere, crossing the A505 and climbing the “hills” of South Cambs and North Essex and on through Thaxted before reaching Finchingfield, often called the most beautiful village in England.
There are a number of cafes and pubs in Finchingfield where you can stock up on coffee, cake and ale and sit on the green visualising the 10 seconds that the TDF took to race through the village last July. For those that want more caffeine there are cafés at Shepreth at mile 25, the Riverside Barnes café at Ickleton at mile 70 and Bicicletta at Saffron Walden . We also pass the Blue Egg café at Gt Barfield just before we get to Finchingfield.
The post refreshment route home takes us through Saffron Walden and past the visually impressive Audley End House from where we follow a well worn path on to Haslingfield, the Eversdens and Bourn.
According to the route it works out at 100.6 miles so hopefully we won’t have to do a couple of laps of the square to get the mileage clicking into treble figures.
Routes:
