by Tina Dankwart...

Thetford to Castle Acre Off-Road ride Report.

We met at a secret location - secret mostly because the organiser (that'll be me) put some rather cryptic description out there with a postcode that led to a place over a mile away from the actual meeting spot.

In my defence - actually i'm not sure there is one. But we all got there in the end ;-) We set off as a group of 7 - Tom, who was going to join us for part of the way, Justin, Mike, Cat, Nicky, Sarah and me - and we were extremely lucky with the weather, glorious sunshine (if a bit cold). The route was a pretty straight forward 36km to Castle Acre, stop at cafe for some coffee and cake, and then ride back. So far the plan. Fortunately the route wasn't quite as soggy as I had anticipated - although we had a few interesting obstacles along the way - a tree had fallen across the path, and Tom bravely cut a way through it, and we formed a chain to lift the bikes through, at another spot we were stopped by a car who pointed out that the road was under water and that we should definitely visit the church (nothing like a bit of local advertising) - but 20cm of water on a perfectly good tarmac road wasn't going to hold us back.  

Tom did a pretty spectacular dismount at one point (he was fine!) although not as spectacular as Nicky's dismount into the nettles later - which made the ride for her an 'inverse type 2 fun' - fun at the time, not so fun later enjoying the nettle stings in the evening! 

The cafe had decided to be closed with no warning on their website, lucky for us the pub had reopened. We sat in the sun in what is a lovely beer garden, although in all honesty the food was terrible and they took ages to serve it. On the way back, Mike shredded his tyre, too big for the tubeless goo to seal it, we tried a tubed tyre which also didn't work, so we had to abandon him at the side of the road and collect him later at McDonald's. 

And whilst that might sound a little disastrous, it was just a typical off road ride really ;-) with the added benefit of good company, sunshine, and some nice, varied tracks - i promised something 'a bit different' ...

Mike “I’ve never had any trouble with tubeless. Touch wood’ and then he tapped the fence!