The Evans Cambridge Sportive

"It's deadly flat in Cambridgeshire" - for comparison, the last bit of the profile is Croydon Hill as I rode home.

A crack squad of SNCC riders agree to meet at Wimpole at 8am to have a go at the Evans 'Cambridge' Ride; Mr Strava tells me we had eleven riders there, although this tale will concern our merry band of five / six / seven. 

By 8.30 it was established that those who had decided to drive to the start were still looking for change for the meter as two of us stood around like a pair of plums whilst the massed ranks of our fellow Spotivists jostled for an early start position.  Having eventually got going some time after 9ish we had an 'entertaining' first 15 miles or so picking our way through a highly eclectic mix of riders; with my favourite being the guy in what appeared to be a pair of SPD Clarks sensible shoes on a mountain bike where the tyres looked the only remotely road-worthy parts and who took umbrage at us passing and managed to whip his clunking collection of cast-iron parts up to over 30mph to (briefly) re-take his position ahead of us. 

We headed eastwards via Chapel Hill to Hasslingfield, the Shelfords and for the second week running I soon found myself going over the Cambridge CC Hill Climb at Worts Causeway. All this fun proved too much for Steve Walker's rear tyre, which having not punctured since his last ride decided that the approach down to Balsham would be a good place to puncture. In only 20 minutes and with three different pumps used we were soon off again and back into the throngs we had already passed once. It was at this point that our six became a seven as Judy was collected as we passed and the next couple of miles to the first stop at West Wratting were made without incident. Bottles re-filled we managed to avoid the trap of leaving in the wrong direction and soon found ourselves in Suffolk, another supposedly flat county, which would see us loop around and cross our tracks at West Wratting again.

I'm not suggesting he had too much cake at the second stop, but almost immediately afterwards Steve Lyons tried to compensate by reducing the weight of his rear wheel by shedding a spoke. Such a minor mishap was no challenge for our crack squad, or at least the few of us still within earshot of Steve when his Mobius Strip of a wheel brought him to a temporary stop, and we were soon off on our travels again.

A few nasty climbs on the way in to Saffron Walden kept us on our toes and gave Mark Greenhow the chance to show us why they named that hill in Yorkshire after him and Ian Burroughs the chance to show us what burning all your matches in one go looked like as he danced up the climb towards Sewards End. I'm not so sure taking hundreds of cyclists through the middle of Saffron Walden was the best bit of route planning, but perhaps hoping the roads would still be closed from Le Tour, that's where we were directed. For comedy value it was worth it as not only did we get to see the 'stopping without unclipping' trick demonstrated by a rider ahead of us but managed to play a more active part in a car crash as a driver about to pull out in front of us was 'given the eyes' to stop him doing so. Unfortunately the chap behind him hadn't incurred my glower and drove into the back of the car in front that had stopped......#BloodyCyclists

Theres obviously something in the water down there as on the way out of Great Chesterford a lady driving towards us was so busy admiring our tight paceline (or was it Terry's tight shorts?) that she hit the kerb, left the road and narrowly avoided making a Renault Scenic shaped hole in the hedge.

By this point Steve L & Judy had dropped back and it was decided to regroup at the next drink stop at Chrishall. Whilst there we noticed both Judy & Steve independently ride straight past without stopping, causing much head-scratching as to why they hadn't followed the plan it turned out no one had informed them of. With a sudden realisation that we were in danger of being beaten to the finish by a very sweaty Irishman riding a wounded bike we wasted no time in only having a couple more slices of cake before grinding back into action. Judy was collected for the third time on the New Road descent from Great Chishill, but heroically said she would hang back for Ian who was now suffering for his earlier exploits. We still hadn't caught Steve by Shepreth, so any ideas of another stop at The Teacake were abandoned as we cracked on.

Steve's Jack Bauer-esque solo break was brought to an end before Orwell, and with a few words of 'encouragement' we kept it together until the finish. Any plans for a Bushmead finish were scuppered as the times were being recorded manually at the finish line which required forming an orderly queue.

As we had post-rides coffees (or a cheeky beer - you know who you are) a couple of friends of Jonathan came for a chat and let us know they were hoping to get to see him in hospital; having originally planned to do the ride with him. Hopefully we'll all get to ride with JP again soon.

Hopefully everyone else enjoyed themselves as much as I did, and excluding the foolish extra miles a couple of us had to do having decided to ride to & from Wimpole, we covered just over 90 miles at just under 19mph and did around 1300m / 4300ft of climbing.

 Simon R