Mini recumbent tour - North Essex (lots of pics)

[Auntie Helen]

Last week I cycled from Great Bromley (north-east of Colchester, near Dedham) to South Benfleet in Essex (45 miles). The first two-thirds of the trip were very nice so I persuaded Uncle James, now he has his own recumbent trike, do do a mini-tour with me from Great Bromley to Tiptree, home of the jam factory!

So off we went, down the hill from Great Bromley to Colchester, through the town centre and then off down the road to Layer until we joined the NCN route 1. This route is rather picturesque at this point, taking you through a wood. We were both glad to have Big Apple tyres on the back to give us a bit more traction but had to dodge some low-handing brambles. In a recumbent you can't pick your route through the horse droppings as easily as you tend to find if you miss them with the front wheels you get them with the back!

Here's a pic of Uncle James relaxing during a short break along the path.

Eventually the track (with some fun downhills and some hard work uphills) makes its way onto some country lanes through various small villages - Layer Marney, Layer Breton, places like that. We took some videos of us zooming down the hills which I'll upload when I've got some spare time.

Here's a pic of the view with what we think is Bradwell nuclear power station in the background.

Here's me taking a short break

We arrived at the Tiptree jam factory after an hour and 20 minutes (it's 16 miles but we weren't going that fast overall) and had lunch and several cups of tea.

The bikes were tied up outside and we noticed lots of people peering at them. When it was time to leave we spent five minutes chatting to a couple of men who were asking us all about them.

It was pretty hard setting off after the large Sundae I had for dessert. Uncle James just had a small ice cream so had more energy!

Still we had fun in the country lanes and retraced our route, this time doing a small deviation to visit Layer Marney Tower which was unfortunately closed (although looking at their opening hours we could go back at 1am on Monday!)

Here's Uncle James zooming along. The photo looks like he is stationary!

A short break for some water outside a rather colourful pub in the village of Birch.

On the return journey I stopped to buy some beans at this rather convenient roadside veg stand!

We decided not to do the off-road bit on the way back and so went to Layer-de-la-Haye instead

Then travelled past the military exercise area.

We eventually met up with a new bit of cycle path (not on our fairly recent Colchester map) and went along past Colchester garrison.

...before making our way home to Great Bromley with a brief stop about 3 miles from home.

And our purchases seemed rather interesting to the third member of our family when we got home:

I'll post a couple of videos in due course. Hope you enjoyed this mini-tour, just 34 miles but very enjoyable.

 

[Auntie Helen]

..and the videos

Here they are.

 

[arallsopp]

Nice work. Looks like a very pleasant ride, and a great camera platform. I love those distinctive low angle shots. It must be very convenient for the trike to not fall over when you're fishing around for a camera.

I had to rubber band the camera to my bent (2 wheeler) just so as I didn't fall off it trying to take shots

 

[Auntie Helen]

It's handy being able to hold the camera with my right hand and steer with the left although it doesn't leave me much gear range if I need to change up or down! I just slipped the camera into my pocket when not using it which worked very well. Uncle James and I also had walkie talkies as we can't hear what the other one is saying half the time when we're cycling.

We did do a minor modification to James's gears whilst stopped at Layer Marney Castle. I noticed the plastic chain guard was flapping against part of the rear framework and he used a rubber band he had with him to keep it from actually touching the metalwork - rubber bands seem surprisingly useful in cycling!

 

[Crackle]

I watched the vids. It all looks fine until you get to a car and see the height difference. I think a trike is too low for me.

Incidentally, I counted your cadence at 60 in one vid.

 

[Auntie Helen]

I seem to spend a lot of time checking my cadence since being made aware of it. I'm pretty sure my cadence is now closer to 70 - I think when holding the camera and not being able to change gear the cadence isn't quite what I would normally do (rather like when talking on a mobile phone you can't walk as fast).

Anyway hills seem to be easier but slower now I am using a higher cadence (at least I think I am) and I don't feel so tired when I get to my destination. Of course that might be because I'm fitter and 5kg lighter than I was two months ago of course

 

[CopperBrompton]

Looks like a nice route. I'm not absurdly far from you, and a neighbour of mine picks up his TRICE next week, so we'll have to see if we can manage a four-trike ride sometime. :-)

 

[Auntie Helen]

Think my cycle ride was to your part of the world last week (I ended up at South Benfleet) although I have to say the scenery was nicer north of Maldon than south of it. I'm always game for some more routes and locations though - especially in Trice convoy!

 

[CycleTourer]

Nice pictures and videos Helen, looks like you had a great ride. My wife used to live in Braintree before we got married and we spent quite a bit of time exploring that area of Essex.

Uncle James and I also had walkie talkies as we can't hear what the other one is saying half the time when we're cycling.

We also use a 'cyclie talkie' system. Very useful, saved a lot of arguments between my wife and I, as I tend to be a slightly faster rider, so I'm usually out in front. I notice from the last video that Uncle James went one way and you went the other, have you tried using a headset? Great for that instant navigational instruction .

 

[bonj2]

what i wanna know is why are all (most) recumbents trikes? What's wrong with recumbent bikes? i.e.with two wheels? surely they're going to go fasteR?

 

[Auntie Helen]

I went for a trike for the stability which was more important to me than speed. If you do an Ebay search for 'recumbent', though, you tend to find more bikes than trikes for sale so I presume that means more are sold overall.

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

That looks fun...you shoulda sedded you were down this way...I could have ridden with you a while.

 

[Auntie Helen]

Heh, I don't know where everyone's based yet, haven't been lurking long enough to pick up that kind of information. I know NOW, of course, that there are quite a few people in the southern part of Essex but haven't come across anyone that near to me except for FatFellaFromFelixstowe which isn't that near really.

 

[byegad]

what i wanna know is why are all (most) recumbents trikes? What's wrong with recumbent bikes? i.e.with two wheels? surely they're going to go fasteR?

When I had my 81 speed AZUB-4 I tried comparing times for that and my 27 speed QNT over a regular 16 mile run which I cover two or three times each week. They both had a bottom gear of 15" and the weights were not THAT different. The main difference was the 150" top gear of the AZUB and the 105" top gear on the QNT. As the route has no BIG down hill parts this difference can be ignored as I used roughly the same gear on both.

What I found was that there was a very slight, 1 minute or so over the 16 miles, advantage to the AZUB.

I did the same over a 24 mile run and was surprised to find the advantage was again small but the other way round!

Where I did find a big difference was on a one way run of 20 miles or so where the AZUB gained 2 or 3 minutes on every run compared to the QNT. This does have a long fast down hill and I would be using the 138" and 150" top two gears on the AZUB and freewheeling on the Trike! Top speed on that 3 or so miles would be around 45mph for the AZUB and 35mph for the trike.

Going back up that route gave a small advantage to the trike.

My guess is that the gearing can be a major factor where a really high gear could be turned for a reasonable time the bike gained some. Also over a longer distance where some slow climbing is involved the stability of the trike is an advantage, on the bike more concentration is needed to stay upright and the slight weaving needed to stay on course must use some energy hence the trike 'making up time'.

Finally most recumbents are in fact bikes. I see more 'bent bikes around than trikes and most European manufacturers make several more bike models than trikes. Even Trice have two bikes in development.

 

[CopperBrompton]

I suspect the difference is entirely down to gearing. I have a 60T top gear on my Q (not available from ICE, it's an HP part) and with that I have reached 54mph downhill. I suspect more is possible given a longer hill.