6 minute read
Stand and deliver… a chilly ride in a highwayman’s hoof prints
Essex-based Audax organiser Tom Deakins weaves plenty of history into his rides – none more so than his challenging Dick Turpin’s Day Out 200km permanent. As the event, around the notorious 18th century highwayman’s haunts, enters its second decade, Tom describes its origins as a celebration of a scoundrel who remains a local hero in his home county
DICK TURPIN was hanged in York for horse-thieving in 1739 – just another common criminal in an age of villains. But thanks to a Victorian novelist, who turned him into a dashing anti-hero, Turpin is right up there on the list of celebrated Essex villains, portrayed by the likes of Sid James in Carry On Dick. I guess he had a good PR man. Whatever the truth of his exploits, randonneurs of an Essex persuasion may contemplate his extraordinary life – especially in the pitch dark, somewhere between London and York.
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It all started with the Randonneur Round the Year. I got on the treadmill of riding a 200km-plus event every month sometime in the 2000s when the AUK calendar was not the treasure trove of events it is now, especially in what we used to think of as the off-season, from late autumn through to some time in February.
I used Herman Ramsey’s Manningtree 200km for the RRtY at first, starting from Saffron Walden, heading west to Buntingford, then along the Suffolk-Essex border (a section later pinched for my Kingdom of the East Saxons 400km), eastwards to Manningtree and back through Lavenham.
I’d already used the AUK Midlands Mesh, organised by Peter Coulson, to put together longer rides for early Super Randonneur series. Conveniently my home town of Great Dunmow lay on one of the routes between “nodes” with set minimum distances, which made initial planning a doddle. As things almost always turned out there were bonus kilometres involved, as many shortest routes were a bit too busy at certain times of the day.
A 200km starting from home seemed ideal – a triangular route up to Saffron Walden for the first control, on to Woolpit, with a long hypotenuse to Ongar via Lavenham and back to Dunmow with the option of B-roads at the beginning and end if icy.
This was ridden a few times solo, then Deniece Davidson came along for the ride one very cold winter Saturday. Deniece has been a contender for AUK points champion, and a former red-hot racer. Originally from Dundee, she now lives in Colchester. All was well until we got on to the lanes after sunset and the frost came down, with puddles freezing over fast. Caution led to a slowing of the pace and we soon got chilled. By Fyfield we were both really feeling the cold.
Seeing a house with lights blazing, Deniece knocked on the door with frozen fingers and asked for sanctuary. We were very kindly given tea and directed to the Aga to warm up gloves and outer layers. The aroma of singeing kit was a sign we might be outstaying our welcome. Deniece’s hands were very warm for the next few miles.
So I thought, I can do better than this route, with a few tweaks, to make it a winter-friendly 200. The mesh route went past Dick Turpin’s cottage in Thaxted and his birthplace, the Bluebell Inn at
Buffing up… Riders meet at the Organiser's place
DICK TURPIN'S DAY OUT
Dick Turpin’s Day Out is a 200km permanent, starting from Great Dunmow, Essex, with controls at Saffron Walden, Acton/Lavenham, Walsham-le-Willows, Debenham and Sudbury. The ride is, according to its creator, Tom, good for a winter 200.
Proper breakfast… at Wally's, Acton Any port… calorie catching at McDonalds
Hempstead, so already there was a title forming in my mind. Pushing the route further out into Suffolk to Walsham-leWillows meant I could miss out going down to Ongar.
Walsham has a thriving village shop, two pubs, and a café too, so plenty of control options. The Six Bells opposite the handsome church is a proper old pub – no food other than crisps, several local ales to tempt you, old dogs, open fires most of the year, old boys playing dominoes, and a wonky clock on the wall which apparently has to be hung crooked to keep good time.
Local cycling author Ian Toulson sells his travel books here. After retiring from teaching he set out to cycle around the North Sea route one summer, and almost every possible mishap afflicted him – mechanical, meteorological or physical.
After Walsham comes Debenham, about an hour further on, with more café and shop options if needed. Then there’s a run south through to Needham Market and a bit of the reversed Dunwich Dynamo route to the next control at Sudbury – McDonalds or Greggs in the town centre for a quick feed, but often an ATM receipt will do for me.
Back to Dunmow there’s an option, including the category three slog up Ballingdon Hill out of the Stour valley, or for a few bonus kilometres, a pleasant laney route through Bulmer, Gestingthorpe – home to heroic Captain Lawrence Oates’ of Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition.
I rode round the route in the autumn of 2009, then, happy with it, I submitted it to John Ward for approval, along with a simple cartoon silhouette of the highwayman with crossed pistols for the card.
Over the years there have been some memorable rides – for myself, 24 in total in the past decade. Digging out my tapereinforced file has dredged up some memories of rides past. One was in the company of the late, great “Viking” Lars Ericsson on his first Audax. Coming from the world of triathlon he was without mudguards on a wet November day, and at our pub stop at the Six Bells he apologised for being moody, then I twigged – the big Swede just had a muddy bottom!
On 7 July 2014, David Coupe and Tim Knights, having begun their ride in Debenham, paused a while in Finchingfield to enjoy the spectacle of the Tour de France passing through on stage three, Cambridge to London. They were then of course, and in more ways than one, full-value in their overall time. Raymond Cheung, “the Straggler” of CC Sudbury, holds the record for the most DTDO brevets – 34 and counting.
The real Dick Turpin was nothing like the romantic anti-hero of legend – that was all down to novelist W. Harrison Ainsworth’s Gothic shocker, Rookwood, published in 1834, which featured Turpin as a minor character in a tale of disputed inheritance, witchcraft, incest and murder. Ainsworth was as prolific as Dickens, publishing 39 novels and countless other writings, but is chiefly remembered for dragging Dick Turpin from obscurity.
Turpin’s epic ride on Black Bess to York was apparently borrowed from the exploits of another highwayman altogether, John ‘Swift Nick’ Nevison in 1676. Riding one horse the 150 miles to York in 15 hours to establish an alibi is probably impossible, though perfectly do-able on a bike, as we all know!
No portraits exist, but Turpin was described as tall, ruddy complexioned, and marked by smallpox. He was born in 1706 in Hempstead, Essex, son of the landlord of the Bluebell Inn, who was also the village butcher. Turpin, possibly because of debts run up through his own butcher’s shop or maybe his wife’s hat shop in Thaxted, turned to crime, initially deer poaching, then falling in with a gang of housebreakers in London, where he was implicated in a murder.
He moved on to highway robbery around London, avoiding capture on numerous occasions. He led an outwardly normal life but when things became too risky in London he moved north to Lincolnshire and used the name of John Palmer. Falling under suspicion, he was jailed pending investigation. From prison in York, he wrote to his brother-in-law, but the postmaster in Saffron Walden recognised the handwriting, having been the schoolmaster in Hempstead years before, and Turpin’s true identity was revealed, and he was tried and hanged.
