FNRttC Friday Night Ride to the Coast, Cardiff to Swansea 22nd August

[Wobblers]

Maybe I should consider putting this ride on my bucket list as the finish is rated better than Whitstable.

Not for nothing do you find me on a windy platform at Chester waiting for the Cardiff train... after getting up this morning at 5 (@martint235 will be sooo pleased to hear, doubtless)for afull day's work. Do it. You wont regret it. Where else would you get a random stranger give you a cup of tea at 3 on the moddle of nowhere??

 

[theclaud]

Apologies to all the non-Whovians among us, but I've been in Caerdydd since lunchtime and thought I'd visit the Doctor Who Experience.
£15 is a little on the pricey side, but it's a very entertaining and highly interactive show.
You even get to fly the Tardis.
I think you'd have to be a fan on the slightly obsessive side , tho' but.

Is anyone meeting up in Pizza Express in The Bay Area later?

With luck, I will be on the same train as @swansonj, and intend to head down to PizzaExpress some time after 9:30. They were open late last year, IIRC. We stayed there until the correct weather conditions prevailed...

 

[CharlieB]

Well, down here on the quayside, it's a sunny evening with a slightly chilly breeze. Bring some layers. This from a winter baby who doesn't feel the cold.

 

[mmmmartin]

That list is incomplete....

Brussels-Ostend wins on start point.

Agreed, that route is utterly splendid. Best of all the rides we do.
And Caen-Bordeaux? Doesn't really count, but I loved it. Both times.....

 

[martint235]

Not for nothing do you find me on a windy platform at Chester waiting for the Cardiff train... after getting up this morning at 5 (@martint235 will be sooo pleased to hear, doubtless)for afull day's work. Do it. You wont regret it. Where else would you get a random stranger give you a cup of tea at 3 on the moddle of nowhere??

Really? You've stopped being a scrounger student. Even so I think you meant you woke up at 5am, went back to sleep for a few hours and then dragged yourself into work about 9ish,

 

[Andrew Br]

And Caen-Bordeaux? Doesn't really count, but I loved it. Both times.....

However fantastic Caen-Bordeaux was mmmartin (and it was utterly, bloody marvellous) it's not a FNRttC.
Unless you're a masochist/athlete.
And that would be to miss the point.

As you were.

 

[StuAff]

However fantastic Caen-Bordeaux was mmmartin (and it was utterly, bloody marvellous) it's not a FNRttC.
Unless you're a masochist/athlete.
And that would be to miss the point.

As you were.

Yup, it's not Friday Night Flight to the Coast....

 

[StuAff]

With luck, I will be on the same train as @swansonj, and intend to head down to PizzaExpress some time after 9:30. They were open late last year, IIRC. We stayed there until the correct weather conditions prevailed...

Weather was great all day/night last year. P***ed down in 2012 though.

 

[Flying Dodo]

Felpham scores highly because the finish is so sudden. You turn a corner and the sea is just a hundred yards away.

For all that I like the dash across the Graveney Marshes, that's not really the finish. The turn in to Beach Walk is kind of dull, and you don't really appreciate the sea until you're on the terrace. Now.....if you were considering the breakfast spots, then they would be rated (on location, rather than the breakfast itself)
1. Southwold (which has two breakfast spots and a fantastic lunch spot)
2. Whitstable
3=. Brighton
3=. Swansea
5. Felpham
6. Southend (although that's really about the furniture and the tiling)
7. Morecambe
8. Hull

But, to redress the balance a little, if you were to rank the rides overall, it would be
1. Southwold (and by a long way)
2. Whitstable
3=. Cardiff to Swansea
3=. Manchester to Morecambe
3=. York to Hull
6=. Southend
6=. Felpham
8. Brighton

What about Burnham though?

 

[srw]

Still not sold on Southwold although that is probably tainted by the one time I did it we arrived at 1 minute past when the pub stopped serving food. Rather than the intelligent and economic thing to do of actually serving several very hungry cyclists they said "No. Kitchen is closed". Fish and chips on the way to Ipswich, good though they were, didn't make up for it. Of the joint 3rds, I've only done the first half of Manchester to Morecambe which was a joy (although very wet).

I don't remember food being involved in lunch - other than an ice-cream. Lunch was a strictly liquid affair.

 

[srw]

Not strictly at the coast.

I don't actually remember seeing the sea at Southwold...

 

[martint235]

I don't remember food being involved in lunch - other than an ice-cream. Lunch was a strictly liquid affair.

Yes cos the pub at Southwold had stopped serving food and by god they weren't going to open their kitchen for a few very hungry cyclists.

I do remember second breakfast at Felixtowe Ferry being one of the nicest I've had though thinking about it. And in a nice location.

 

[Flying Dodo]

Not strictly at the coast.

Only because the road ends there, and doesn't go any further. And besides, a few hundred years ago, it would have been all under water. And for my final, devastating conclusion, it's still a FNRttC destination!

 

[mmmmartin]

My Twitter timeline tells me they arrived some time before two hours ago, the sky is largely clear and blue and it was bloody freezing, even in the sun.

(Although the comment about the cold was made by someone who, unlike many of us, does not have the advantage of being covered in a thick layer of blubber.)

 

[User482]

It was a little brisk but otherwise entirely marvellous. Now suitably rehydrated, I await my train.