12 minute read
The only way is Audax… in Essex
Veteran rider Felix Ormerod takes a nostalgic trip back to the early days of Audax in out-of-the-way Essex, where the county’s many windmills provided ideal landmarks for long-distance cycling “steeple-chasers”
Happy returns… Felix outside Great Chishill, no longer a control, this year, with the same bike (and lights) he was using in the 1980s
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The only way is Audax…
IN 1983, LONG BEFORE Audax Club Mid-Essex (ACME), the secretary of the Essex District Association, Dot Sharp, received a letter from CTC headquarters with guidance on how to organise a randonnee under Audax UK rules.
I’m not sure what prompted the letter. Keith Matthews had organised the very first National 400 the year previously. Perhaps the CTC had their eye on future organisers of that annual event. Indeed it was staged in Essex again in 1990.
Keith had been running the classic Dorset Coast 200 since 1978 but the Audax seed still hadn’t been sown in Essex – the scope for gatherings of the Essex CTC sections didn’t extend beyond long-established reliability rides, off-road rides and map-reading competitions.
The suggested ride may well have been 200km. There was little emphasis on the shorter populaire event at the time – that wasn’t really “long distance cycling”. But 200km in almost 14 hours didn’t seem too onerous a task for cyclists used to completing day rides in the dark or 100s in eight hours or 150 miles in 12 hours. What did start the head scratching was how to manage the long opening hours of the necessary controls due to the large spread of minimum and maximum speeds. In addition, the birth of Audax UK seven years before had gone almost unnoticed in insular Essex.
This was not the first randonnee to start in Essex. Herman Ramsey of Colchester Rovers CC desperately required a 400km brevet in 1979 in order to qualify for PBP that year (which he completed) so he ran one himself at short notice. Back then, a phone call to John Nicholas was all that was required for him to get out his gothic type and printing press.
Herman continued to run an annual 300 or 400 from that date – rides that still operate in the safe hands of ACME. So it was perhaps unsurprising that the most enthusiasm for running a 200km ride came from members of the soon to disband Colchester section, Len Harris and Terry Harding. Havering CTC also showed interest – Brian Phipps had completed Windsor-Chester-Windsor in 1979, following in the wheel marks of his brother Len, along with a good number of other shorter randonnees.
Other sections were somewhat dumbfounded but went along with the idea. Brian must have been one of the very few AUK members riding in the 1984 event. Perhaps for that reason, Charles Comport never bothered to list who belonged to Audax UK in his “results sheet”. After discussion at committee level, the die was cast and the randonnee would go ahead the following year, 1984.
Six Mile Bottom post mill, a control point used in the early 90s
in Essex
This initial foray into running an Audax ride would consist solely of a 200km event, and Charles Comport, who would later organise the National 400, took on the task of organising this voyage into the cycling unknown.
A starting point in mid Essex seemed sensible. An initial idea was to use Mountnessing village hall in the shadow of the restored post windmill, but the hiring charges proved prohibitive. More recently Stefan Eichenseher has actually managed to run a 110km event from that location without a milling theme!
So the start was planned for the vicinity of Chelmsford, which had the advantage of being on a railway line, and the village hall at Boreham was chosen, just a few miles outside the county town. The smock mill, converted to a house at Terling, having been used in the 1937 Will Hay comedy film, “Oh Mr Porter!” was only a few miles away and could be viewed towards the end of the ride.
Essex is not famous for dramatic scenery or fierce climbs, especially in its more rural parts, but it does have a number of restored windmills, identifiable landmarks which set it apart from many counties, allowing for a kind of architectural and historical cycling steeplechase. The county also has a number of fords, and I believe a punning “Fords Populaire” event was created later in the 1980s, which somehow I missed.
A route was devised which passed a sizeable number of surviving windmills, not only in Essex but also in the neighbouring counties of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.
In true CTC tradition, the catering emphasis was on booked “elevenses” and afternoon tea, with a do-it-yourself or free-foraging lunch suggestion – either food carried, or taking advantage of the many village pubs. The afternoon stop was at one of the cycling club huts close to the 32nd milestone at Ugley, kindly afforded by Shaftesbury CC, mainly through the enthusiasm of that club’s Brian and Senta Jordan. CTC councillor Peter Jackson was also a member. In more recent times, other clubs’ huts have been used, most recently that of the Comrades CC. Few people who enjoyed the “Windmill Ride” will have forgotten the social occasion around the tea stop.
For this first event, Charles tracked down and booked Evelyn’s Chuck Wagon from Basildon which was parked midmorning on a grassy roadside outside Gestingthorpe, the village which was home to Captain Lawrence Oates of the ill-fated Scott Polar Expedition of 1911-
1912, and to whom there is a memorial in the church.
All controls – including the long forgotten “secret control” – were to have marshals sourced from among non-riding CTC members who would sign the brevet cards and apply a specially cut rubber windmill authenticating stamp. It was also agreed to advertise the event not just in the pages of Cycletouring but also in Cycling Weekly and Cycling World. An advertising poster was also produced for local bike shops and local racing clubs.
Then it was a question of waiting for entries to start rolling in – by post of course. In addition to the “essay-style” route sheet, entrants would also receive an A4 page of touring notes which contained potted histories of the various windmills passed en route. Well, these were touring events, not races.
Other parts of the country were well ahead of Essex in welcoming the Audax format, especially the West Country and North of England, but there was little evidence of AUK members racing across the country to Boreham in order to pick up points. Was anyone interested in points in those years in Essex? And that situation wouldn’t change in the country when the AAA award was introduced! However, Essex did welcome for a few years running
Ron Turner at Great Thurlow mill control 77km with his Viscount and my Major bike
a Bristol CTC member and Chippenham Wheeler, Martin Dean.
The Boreham start and finish served Essex well for a few years before it migrated to the club hut of Chelmer CC, where it has remained to date apart from three years 2013-2015 when Galleywood was the location and, of course 2020 when there was no event. Otherwise this minor classic has run unbroken, perhaps one of the longest running AUK events, along with the populaire introduced the following year in 1985. To be strictly accurate, the 1985 200k event didn’t have a windmill theme, rather it was a tour along the Stour and Brett valleys on the Suffolk border but with the same tea stop which has been the constant for all rides since the beginning.
The earlier Colchester Rovers’ 300 and 400 events which Herman Ramsey started also continue under ACME stewardship, designated the Green and Yellow Fields and Asparagus and Strawberries 300 and 400 randonnees. We must not forget the contribution to Audax in East Anglia by Jacqui and
Burwell Mill control 1986 with four members of Havering CTC
Great Chishill control in 1984, from left, Steve Goodfellow, Peter, Rita and Robin Jackson, Brian Phipps, Tony Parkins (on Sturmey Archer 5 gear) myself, Margaret Davis
Paul Denny who also organised many events from the Norwich area.
In that first Windmill 200 there was a good number of “full value” rides, not because of age, but rather many of the participants hadn’t ridden more than 75 or 100 miles in a day before and were stopping to have picnics from their saddlebags and take photographs or chat to the human controllers. Ernie Vesper of the 40 Plus CC and a subsequent secretary and president of that club, crept home with minutes to spare – he was 72 but far from the oldest on the road. That accolade went to a former world record holder, Harry Grant of Colchester Rovers who was 78. He’d held the one-hour motor paced record in 1932, and when he was 80 he rode the 110km populaire.
Chairman and President, Doug Brunwin was always one of the first back on the 200k – in around nine hours despite being in his 60s. But nowadays that would be considered an average age for participants in Audax events. Other well known names who completed the event successfully were the Swallow frame builders Robert Wade and Pete Bird now of Ironbridge Bicycles.
After a debrief after the inaugural event, there was a feeling that a different route ought to be tried in 1985, taking the riders to the valleys of the rivers Brett and Stour, with elevenses at Bures but calling in again at Ugley for tea. A supporting 100km populaire was added which increased the popularity of the event.
The vital statistics for 1985 were: 154 entries split 81-76 in favour of the 200. Although there were fewer entries for the longer distance, the total number was up more than 50 per cent on the 1984 single event entry of 97, starting a golden period for the Windmill Ride.
In 1986, although windmills were back on the menu, perhaps the 1985 rivers theme was not strong enough, along with the cakes and trifle at the Shaftesbury CC hut. The route was extended into Cambridgeshire for rather longer than the only transitory crossing of the border in 1984 to Chishill Windmill.
Beyond Six Mile Bottom the tower windmill control at Burwell, working until the early 1950s, was reached via the outskirts of Newmarket. This mill, as at Chishill, was open to visiting cyclists which afforded aerial views of the controllers at work. This meant a steeper climb up to Chishill after a long flat stretch once the Gog Magog Hills had been crossed.
For obsessives of 1960s TV series, Chishill Mill is featured in episode 29 of ITV series “The Baron” in1967 – still available on YouTube. After a car chase involving a Rover P5 and Jensen C-V8, shots ring out within the post mill and a body lies dying of stab wounds…
Combined entries in 1986 were 137, of which 66 passed through the Burwell control which I myself was manning, having ridden out from Chelmsford earlier in the morning. No helper ride points then! I wonder how many of these riders were AUK members? Probably very few although I had just joined as member C155, sadly not continued after 1993 until I recently re-joined.
In 1984 51 of the 82 successful finishers were CTC members – at a time when CTC District Associations hosted the majority of Audax events. Two riders were denied brevets for the cardinal sin of failing to fit mudguards, one being Neil Esko, a Californian living in England – who would no doubt referred to them as fenders. Many of the first riders are no longer with us but a good proportion of the youngsters are still cycling – some are still active Audax UK members riding 200km events and longer. By the late 1980s, the total entries managed to top 200 and briefly a 75km option was added to the staple 200/110 pairing.
In the pioneering 1984 event, the youngest rider was Matthew Cant, who
A view from Burwell mill of the control in 1988
had not yet turned 13 and who rode around with his father Mick. He was a regular rider in Eastern Audax events until only a few years ago. Only one year older was Robin Jackson, stoking his father’s tandem alongside his mother on her curly Hetchins. I myself may even have been above average age at the time, but my task was to shepherd CTC club mate Ron Turner, who took some of the photos, back home on his Viscount Aerospace with half chromed blades: the non-death-fork model. It was probably his longest ever cycle ride. Our time was a moderately full-value 12.5 hours.
At Burwell, Stevens’ Mill, used as the most distant control for a few years from 1986 onwards, was under restoration during the 80s and 90s, having been bought by a trust in 1972, so either had scaffolding up it, or was missing a pair of sails. It has since been restored to its full working glory after a £425,000 grant from the lottery fund. The locally quarried clunch has been tarred and it looks a treat. It’s a shame that it’s no longer used as a control.
Six Mile Bottom post mill has since become “privatised”, or rather the privately-owned building is now unapproachable. Chishill has also been purchased from Cambridgeshire County Council and undergone a complete external restoration. It reopened in time for the 2019 running of the Windmill Ride which that year had a resurgence in the number of entries. Although I didn’t enter that year, and had planned to ride in 2020, I finally renewed my relationship with Chishill windmill in 2021, in a more attenuated list of riders.
Fortunately I managed to ride with a trio from CC Sudbury whom I cajoled to stop for a nostalgic photo session just before the light rain started to fall. Although known as Great Chishill, my OS map shows it just over the boundary in the sparsely populated, elongated parish of Little Chishill which also stretches down to the A505 at Flint Cross. For the occasion I was using one of the same frames I was riding through the 1980s with toe clips, saddle bag and rack.
What had changed? For a start, not so many steel frames or mudguards, busier roads especially around Newmarket, the absence of smiling faces at all controls, and almost universal helmet wearing.
Essex CTC were behind the Audax curve in 1984 but the shock-of-the-new produced one of the longest running series of events in the Audax calendar and long may these rides – run capably over recent years by Stefan Eichenseher – continue.
A map of Windmills in the area, not all of which have been visited on the routes over time
