Chippenham Flapjack 102km Audax Ride

Riders flood out of the Bath Road car park, Chippenham

(click once to enlarge the pictures)

King Alfred the Great was rather fond of Chippenham. He used to stay there in his hunting lodge. (Tenuous link alert!) He didn’t burn the cakes at Chippenham though and neither do the merry band of bakers at the Chippenham & District Wheelers who host this annual 102km Audax ride. The aptly named Flapjack is a sort of festival of food on two wheels.

Riding up Chippenham’s High Street there are still some fine old buildings to admire. Back in the days of the stage coach, travellers often mistakenly thought that they’d arrived in Bath when they reached Chippenham and as a result, the town became known as Little Bath.

As we headed for the open countryside, with not so much as a hint of a breeze, the biting cold was really hurting my fingers. Judging by the amount of finger-flexing to encourage better circulation that was going on around me, I wasn’t the only one suffering.

With the sun doing its best to burn off the early morning fog, the climb up to Bremhill certainly got the blood pumping. Quite a few of the sheltered spots around Spirthill were found to be harbouring patches of ice, and even though things were definitely warming up, isolated pockets of the slippery stuff stayed with us into the early afternoon.

Please keep off of the daffodils!

Being the first of the day, the control at Brinkworth was a busy one with neat lines of bikes up against every available wall and fence. This also extended to the hedgerow, but care had to be taken not to crush the fledgling daffodils. A couple of ‘Keep off the Daffodils Please’ signs had been placed on the ground and Eric Fletcher the organiser, was also on hand to ensure they weren’t being trampled. (No doubt preserving the flowers is something the Village Hall Committee insists upon).

With a couple of loose crowns I didn’t dare risk a slice of the legendary flapjack, but I was more than pleased with the delicious homemade fruit cake.

With lunch beckoning at the Kemble Village Hall, I set off for Siddington. The loner in me appreciated the open road and once I’d completed the gradual incline across the Somerford Common and up to Minety, it was all pretty flat around the outer edges of the Cotswold Water Park. The ‘Quiet Road’ might have been quiet, but covered in mud it had ceased to be a road.

A packed village hall at Kemble

At Kemble, home of the Red Arrows until 1983 (of course that’s RAF Kemble and not the village hall), the well-oiled machine that is ‘Dream Team 2’ was working as efficiently as ever keeping waiting times for the servings of beans on toast down to an absolute minimum. A cup of tea polished off the feast. There was plenty of cake on offer too, but I decided to save a small space for the afternoon tea at Sherston Village Hall.

Beans means it's the Flapjack

The ride up the tree lined lane to Tarlton, through Rodmarton, around to Cherington and onto Chavenage was cycling at its best. Had it been a few degrees warmer you could have been forgiven for thinking it was a summer’s day.

At Sherston, the light, fluffy sponge cake was the perfect accompaniment to my cup of tea.

The final leg to the Scout Hut in Derriads Lane, Chippenham was made via Grittleton, Castle Combe and Biddestone.  Poor form I know, but I didn’t have any room left for the soup and rolls at the end. Next year I’m going to pace myself a bit better to make sure I can squeeze in all four courses.