Touring Norfolk in a motorhome

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Day eight – On our way to Norfolk via a 30-mile bike ride around the Cambridgeshire countryside 

Route: campsite – Anstey hall – Grantchester – Coton – Madingley Hall – south to a1303 roundabout – Hardwick – south to Harcamlow/Wimple way – Caldecote – Kingston – great Eversden – little Eversden – Harlton – Haslingfield – Chapel hill – Barrington – Foxton – Fowlmere – Thriplow – Newton-Shelford Road under m11 – Little Shelford – Great Shelford – A1301 back to campsite

Distance: 36 miles

Today’s route is mainly along country lanes and through stunningly pretty villages (along with odd sections of bridleway comprising baked earth or gravel).

 

Whitewashed or pink pastel coloured thatch cottages with little triangular roof porches, diamond lead windows and climbing roses. Georgian farm houses with big doors and rectangular windows under red and buff-coloured tiled roofs. Nearby barns, black wooden clad, Dutch style with steep black corrugated tin roofs.

Rolling fields of wheat, corn and oil seed rape, stretching to the far horizon; over a kilometre long and as much wide, these dark green cereal crops nod gently in the breeze, their uniformity punctuated by the stark light brown or white parallel tractor tracks. Here is chalk and sandstone land. Every cereal field is fringed by red margins of poppies and other wild flowers, a farmer’s nod to conservation; habitats for our native pollinators, courtesy of rural wildlife environment grants we suspect.

‘Green Man’ plaster carvings appear on ancient cottages, high in the apex of the steep pitched roofs side walls. Past village greens, village ponds and community halls we cycle. Each village with its own unique hand painted village sign and beacon basket on a wooden pole.  Each sign gives a flavour of the village history about its Saxon or Norman roots. Red telephone boxes, still in working order found in every village, some of them faded and covered by lichen, their windows grimy from neglect.

Little roads running alongside clean village brooks and streams with gurgling waters, clumps of brilliant green hornwort and reedy margins interspersed with clumps of yellow irises. Coots darting to and fro into the shade proffered by extensive weeping willow trees.

Ram shackled pubs with sagging roofs, old stone walls, wooden garden benches and a mixture of thatched and tiled roofs, provide frequent stopping off points.  

The ride is delightful, the scenery stunning. Don’t forget to divert up to Madingley Hall, part of the university, where you will find a small café and a delightful garden terrace.

We have e bikes, Trek ones with good Bosch motors and our range is up to about 50 miles across undulating terrain and to 70 miles across flat landscapes. We use sites with EHU’s so we can charge them and we have posted before about e bikes; just scroll back a few blogs to find out more. Our tips, if you don’t allow the batteries to run right down on a ride and if you charge them frequently from their half-used state, then they seem to cope with anything you throw at them. We have good quality Ortlib pannier bags which just hook on and lift off instantly into which go two spare inner tubes (one for each bike because they are different wheel rim sizes), a first aid kit, two gold secure bike locks, our waterproofs and a picnic. We wouldn’t be without them, they are an investment. Our only note of caution is our great reluctance to leave them padlocked somewhere whilst we both go off exploring and so we have learned that if we want to cycle to a place and then visit it, we take it in turns. One of us always stays with the bikes. Interestingly we thought perhaps we were being paranoid about this but on this trip we are discovering that lots of people using e bikes think and act the same way.

What do you do with your E bikes as you explore places? Do let us know in the comment box below.