One mile loop

A handy all left-turns route used while cycle training my son.

Future route to Three Jays

Brook Park West has been given the go ahead which will upgrade the footpath to Crome Road from St John's Road, and the St John's road crossing from pedestrian to toucan, meaning this route will avoid all the silly bits of shared cycle route around the main roundabout by the fire station.

Round trip to the Three Jays

I thought I'd use Cycle.Travel to suggest a route to the pub that I visited last night, and followed it as best as I remembered it; the saved route has been tweaked to where I actually went. 

I used the round trip option as I suspected the cycle path through the recreation ground might not be as well lit as the main roads, and while my outbound trip was during daylight the return journey was not. 

After a few months of not getting out on the bike, this was a pleasant (helped by the 4 real ales on offer all being in good condition last night) trip to start getting back into practice for working at the Clacton beer festival next week. In fact, it might now be the only chance I get.

Round trip to Brightlingsea, back via Foot Ferry

According to my calendar, apparently I'm 44 and a bit. I guess that means I'm approaching the age where I nearly qualify to be a MAMIL, except I don't feel that old, and the only lycra I wear is as a percentage of my socks. So, perhaps AMAMIDJ (approaching middle aged man in denim jeans) might be more appropriate. I bring this up now as I'll be mentioning the jeans again below.

Yesterday afternoon, after assembling a trampoline, mowing the lawn and taking the garden rubbish to the civic amenity site I had a few hours free for a cycle ride (and a pass out after all the hard work). Tendring CAMRA have a pub passport scheme running at the moment until the end of July and I thought I'd take the opportunity to head to Brightlingsea to visit the three pubs there as they are too far for me to get to in my lunch hour. My previous route description for the route to the Bromley Cross mentions how I have cycled to Brightlingsea before via Great Bentley, and as the Plough is also in the passport that became my first stop. The advantage for my unfit self of going via Great Bentley is it avoids the valley (or more importantly the hill out of the valley) where the B1027 crosses the Bentley Brook - where the Thorrington Road crosses it as you leave Great Bentley the dip is much less severe. However there is no avoiding the hill up to the church as you approach Brightlingsea by road, or in my case the shared use cycleway besides the road. I'll digress a moment about something that has been irritating me.

The cycleway up the hill into Brightlingsea is on the right hand side of the road as you head towards the town. It begins when you are still heading down hill, and cyclists are expected to filter left onto the pavement and dismount to cross. The first section on the right hand side is then rather sandy and gritty and could do with more maintenance. If I were fitter I would be tempted to keep my momentum going and stay on the road, even though generally the cycleway is fine; it is just that I'm sure that often it is likely to be quicker to cycle up the hill than stop, dismount, wait for gap in traffic, remount, and head up the hill with none of the momentum you lost by crossing. But the irritation? When looking for something on the internet I found some minutes for some local transport panel which were upset that not enough cyclists are using it and were going to spend money on additional signage. It isn't the signage that is needed - spend the money on sweeping, pruning, and some way of allowing bicycles to access it without having to dismount. As it happens, the traffic was quiet yesterday so I just filtered across onto it. Another irritation I almost forgot. Lots of bollards to warn you that you have to give way every time a track to a gate into a field crosses the cyclepath - give the cyclists and pedestrians right of way and remove those bollards that I wasn't alway sure I was going to fit between.

And relax. 

Brightlingsea seems to lack bicycle parking when compared to say Clacton or Frinton. They have an ornamental penny farthing shaped stand with spaces for what look to be 4 adult bikes and 2 child (the sort that you push your wheel into and hope nothing bends while you're gone), so I chained up there for my visit to the Olde Swan and Brewers Arms. It was remounting the bike afterwards where my new "regular fit" jeans proved tighter on my legs than I expected, so I didn't lift my leg quite high enough to clear the saddle and I ended up kicking the bike over while still holding onto it and landed in a heap. Perhaps there is something to this lycra stuff. So I managed to fall onto my bike (rather than off it). I rolled down to the Railway Tavern and chained up to a lamp post before enjoying a drink of Railway Tavern Bladderwrack Stout. 

I'd had some vague notion about taking the foot ferry across to Point Clear on my way back. I knew the last one was at 4pm, and picking up this year's timetable while in the Olde Swan I found they were running an hourly service this weekend (during the week you phone for a ferry with 2 hours notice, until the schedule summer service begins). I was able to catch the 3pm service much more easily than I'd worried about. Just be there in time, push the bike on (£1 for me, 50p for the bike, paid as I got off at Point Clear). I'll certainly use it again (especially if I can work out how to catch it from the Point Clear side, as it is a Brightlingsea to East Mersea route that stops at Point Clear if you ask the pilot as you get on).

I'll gloss over the pub stops on the way home and concentrate on the route. I cycled up Point Clear Road and down Lee Wick Road to reach the sea wall at Lee-over-Sands. Initially I pushed the bike on the sea wall (rather long grass), but then decided it had been flattened enough by other walkers to allow me to cycle. It became a concrete surface somewhere before Seawick. When I reached Jaywick I took the new ramp down to the Martello tower's car park, and followed Lotus Way, Tamarisk Way, the one way system and Broadway to reach the cycleway off The Close which I've used previously. This takes me along past Clacton golf club and another Martello tower before bringing me to the Martello pub (now a Toby) at the end of Marine Parade West. I followed the cycle route along the front a bit further before rejoining Marine Parade West somewhere before the pier, and turning onto the A133 to make my final stop at the Old Lifeboat House. 

All in all this was a very pleasant route and next time I'll make fewer stops and enjoy it even more.

Gorse Lane to Bromley Cross

I've tweaked this route to represent a ride I did on the day of the men's singles finals at Wimbledon in 2013. The route that c.t suggested looked interesting when I had just entered start and end points, but this route offers many refreshment stops (i.e. pubs) to choose from en route.

Starting at the Cross Inn at Great Bromley and heading back towards Clacton, this route passes the Old Courthouse Inn (apparently haunted, but closed and may have sold recently at auction), the Snooty Fox, the Kings Arms at Frating, the Plough at Great Bentley, the Royal Fusilier at Aingers Green, the White Hart at Weeley Heath and the Blacksmiths Arms in Little Clacton. Oh, and then Morrisons for perhaps a wider range of refreshments.

The Tendring district itself has very few hills and this route is fairly level. Most regular cyclists will have no problems with the route (even I didn't and I'm by no means a regular cyclist). There are minor dips as you leave Great Bentley, and between the Old Courthouse and Great Bromley church, but these are minor. The route from Gorse Lane to Great Bentley is also a good start for the route to Brightlingsea as it is a lot more level and quieter than the B1027. I might add that as another route later.

At some point I want to carry on past the Bromley Cross to Ardleigh (Red Lion in village, then Wooden Fender towards Colchester from the crossroads, or straight on towards Dedham).