Bicycle carnage. (Bailey's cafe, Attleborough)

Baileys Cafe,

Attleborough,

Now Closed Down

Today I set off on the second leg of my cafe cycle double header. Today's guest was Big George. Because of the very cold temperatures we decided that a pitch inspection was required to make sure it was going to be safe to ride. The roads outside my house seemed fine but we had forgotten how much colder it get's in the countryside, which was where we were heading, compared to the town. This proved to be a fatal mistake. The route was a 36 miles loop via Attleborough stopping off at Bailey's cafe.

We decided the conditions were playable and after piling on extra layers for warmth we set off. The main topic of conversation was future trip planning. The next "celebrity cyclist recommends" (see last celebrity cyclist recommends) ride is scheduled for a few weeks time so I let Big George into the secret of who the celebrity is and where we were going. 

The roads had all been fine until out of the blue we hit a patch of ice. Big George lost control and slid off his bike right in front of me. I was unable to halt in time, and had to use riding into Big George's back as a braking device. This sent me flying over the handle bars onto the soft verge. There were bikes, bottles, pumps and people splattered across the road and a car could have come along at any moment putting us into serious peril.

Fortunately thanks to my quick thinking I was able to get my camera out and take a photo for the blog before any clearing up had started.

Bicycle carnage, with Big George massaging his injured back

With photo safely captured, and despite it being his fault, I kindly checked to see if Big George was ok,. He was a bit shaken and had hurt his hip and back but he was fit enough to continue to the cafe which was all I really cared about.

We tentatively continued our journey and eventually crawled into Attleborouh where we found Bailey's cafe on the high street over looking the green. There was limited outdoor seating but at this temperature we were likely to get frozen to the chairs so we went inside.

Outside Bailey's cafe, the outdoor seating table and chair is behind me

Bailey's is fairly small and was busy but we were able to shove in front of a frail old lady to grab the last table so we could start to warm up, she could always sit outside, I thought, so I didn't feel too bad.

I checked out the cake selection on top of the counter and apart from no chocolate cake it had a decent selection so I awarded a decent effective cake selection (ECS) rating.

Cake selection nicely labelled

I ordered lemon sponge, a cheese scone (as part of my cheese scone hot, fruit scone not research) and a hot chocolate. Big George was clearly still suffering for shock as he ordered crumpets and Marmite (other yeast based spreads are available). Not only are crumpets and Marmite not cake but I didn't even know they were a thing. In his current mental state I felt it would be dangerous for him to take part in any further cafe rating today.

Cakes and drinks with crumpets and Marmite airbrushed out as they are not a thing.

My hot chocolate was good and strong and Big George thought his Cappuccino was excellent and better than most so good drinks scores.

Sadly my cheese scone had not been warmed but it still tasted nice. The Lemon sponge was also good. As it wasn't a thing I ignored Big George's crumpets and Marmite comments.

Overall Bailey's cafe had performed very well and was a top half cafe in my league table. It was also one of the cheapest cafe's. As Big George clearly didn't know what time of day it was I didn't tell him that he paid for both of us thinking he was just paying his share of the bill.

Bashed and bruised we took it easy on the way back. Big George did mention that he was surprised how expensive crumpets and Marmite were but I told him that's because they weren't a thing and he seemed happy.

Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
7.0	8.0	6.5	7.5	6.5	7.1

Map of route we took.

Click link to download 36 mile Norwich Attleborough loop GPX for your GPS