So... Auntie Helen's write-up.
I left home at 9:30am, confident in my predictions of lovely weather, my smugness paled a little as I noticed more and more traces of snow as the A12 headed westwards and my car stubbornly refused to read the outside temperature as anything higher than -1.5.
I arrived at Billericay station first (apparently) and set about reassembling the seat onto my trike. Uncle James had done a small gaffer-tape modification to the seat mounting where some paint had worn off and it seemed to be causing problems getting the seat to bed in properly. As I was turning the trike upside down and looking irritated, a mystery gentleman arrived in the car park with a bike in the boot. This inspired me to stop being so useless and I managed to fix the seat, after introducing myself to FatFellaFromFelixstowe.
After a 10 minute queue to buy a parking ticket, I rejoined my bike outside which I had left with BOAB to discover quite a few people in fluorescent yellow. Various people introduced themselves and I instantly forgot their names as usual (sorry!) but then got sidetracked playing with my new toy, a Garmin GPS bought from our very own Stevevw, who had also fashioned a Trike Mount for the Garmin out of some random bike bits he had lying about.
Eventually more and more people turned up, we heard apologies for absence from some (and some others were mysterious in their absence) and were finally waiting for Aperitif. Knowing he'd missed everyone on the last ride we thought it only fair to give him a few extra minutes. He arrived very shortly, having apparently ridden there all the way from Heathrow. Absolutely mad!
Off we set through Billericay High Street, a motley mix of cyclists, mostly wearing fluorescent yellow, on various bikes including two recumbent trikes and one recumbent bike. We soon left the town and found ourselves in Little Burstead where we had the amusement of seeing a chappie looking forlornly at his little sports car that he had driven into a field.
We went through various Essex villages, many of which appeared to be up steeper hills than I personally favour, but we all made it eventually, if rather strung out in a line as we cycled. There was some snow at the edges of the roads and a few patches of ice but nothing too dodgy initially.
Going through Brentwood I got stuck in a traffic jam (I don't filter up the inside being too fat!) so people had to wait for me - sorry for that! Some kind gentlemen kept me company whilst I crept along like all the people in the tin cans on wheels. This kindness was slightly tempered by the comment "I'll get a photo of that!" when I found myself in a Box Junction when the exit wasn't clear :$ Fortuntely I caught Ianrauk in a "Keep Clear" section just a minute or so later. But didn't have the camera.
Periodically we all stopped to allow everyone to catch up and this was occasionally a photo opportunity.
After a while we reached Ingatestone which had a tea shop and this was a chance for a stop. We dumped the bikes all around the place and bought doughnuts, tea, coffee etc.
Then onward for another ten miles to Hanningfield Reservoir down some lovely quiet lanes. We had a moment's excitement on some ice (where Aperitif and iluvbikes did an amazing job of staying vertical). There were other points where it was a bit slippy at times.
We arrived at the Three Compasses and rather startled them by descending en masse in a cloud of yellow and lycra. The food came very quickly and, after some confusion as to who had stolen BOAB's coat (the coat that was hanging up from a beam and to which he was pointing saying "my coat looks exactly like that one") we went outside for the obligatory group photo. By this time both Blaugrana and User3143 (the other two recumbent riders) had had to leave us so they weren't in this pic.
Sorry for cutting Tdr1nka off!
All our bikes...
Cycling on a full stomach isn't always easy but with such a beautiful day and on quiet lanes we managed it! We returned to Billericay Station, said our farewells (including to the clearly barmy Aperitif who was cycling back to Heathrow!!!) and I took a final photo as SigSilverprinter distributed some home-made cake.
Thanks for a great time BOAB and the good company of all of you!
