Norfolk Cafe Cycle Tour Sportive 11. (39 miles Reepham via Reepham station cafe)

Sportive 11

Reepham Railway Station,

Reepham,

Under new management

See Egg Hunt

Saturday saw the latest Cake Crusader Sportive. A bumper turnout of 5 met at race HQ for pre ride faffing about before heading North to Reepham. Today's stop was at Reepham Railway station by Kerris farmhouse pine shop.

Waiting at Race HQ for sportive to begin

With only 4 other cyclists to herd progress was going well until just after we crossed the busy A47. Here Ali punctured and we discovered it takes four men to change an inner tube. Three to do repair stuff and Dr Hans to observe in case there is a medical emergency.

Dr Hans checking that there were no medical emergencies during the fixing of the puncture

During the repair a car approached and a lady asked directions to the nearby school. Fortunately my cycle cafe adventures have not only made me a bit of an expert on cake but I also now know my way round the highways and byways of the Norfolk country side. I was therefore able to give, what we all agreed, were excellent clear instructions. After the lady had repeated back to me my suggested route she responded with ' haven't I just driven that way?' I pointed out that as I hadn't been in the car with her for her previous attempts I had no idea how this route compared with them but I suggested she gave my directions a go anyway. Hopefully she found the school as term must have started some time ago and her son was now several weeks late for registration.

With no further drama we pulled in to Reepham railway station and as it was such a nice day we decided to sit in the large outdoor bench seating area. But first we went inside to check out cakes etc.

Outside Reepham Station in the outdoor bench seating area

I had been to Reepham railway station before and knew they had infeasibly large cheese scones (see Bike security) so hoped I won't be disappointed this time. Along with the scones there was a nice selection of cakes and slices but sadly no big sponge cakes. As the cheese scones were still as infeasibly large as before I ordered one of them plus some chocolate and orange slice to go with my hot chocolate.

cake selection

As I don't drink coffee I was happy with my order but the rest of the party were not so pleased when they were told that frothy coffee machines had not made it to Reepham yet so it was standard filter coffee all round. Personally I thought this was a good thing as I have never understood the point of fancy coffee, especially people wanting to put syrup into it so that it doesn't even taste of coffee any more. However I appeared to be in a minority of one.

It was nice to be able to sit outside for the first time this year as we waited for our food and drinks to arrive.

Waiting in the sun

Despite there only being 5 of us I still found organising score gathering difficult. Ali appeared to think he was in one of Enid Blytons famous 5 books and said gosh a lot.before ordering lashings of Ginger Beer instead of a hot drink, this quickly disqualified himself from any further rating activity. Dr Hans was confused by his Bakewell Tart as he was unclear if a Tart counted as a cake. As I knew you could get Bakewell tart in the Mr Kipling cake range, this was good enough proof for me, so I agreed that Dr Hans could join in cake rating. Which he did and said his Bakewell tart was very good.

Cake and drink rating chaos

I was glad to see that, like my cheese scone, Chris's fruit scone was also infeasibly large, not only that but both scone types were very tasty too. I even added the cheese scone to the contenders list for possible cheese scone of the year 2015.

Infeasibly large scones

After calm was restored and I had totted up the scores it became clear that Reepham Railway Station had come out with almost exactly the same score as on my last visit, so good consistency. Reepham Railway station is a very good stop for cyclists, especially if you like scones, as it is on the Marriots way and has lots of space for bikes.

The trip home was very windy so half way back I agreed to take a shortcut down the Marriots way into Norwich to complete another successful Cake Crusader sportive. 

Note: I have renamed the blog to 'The Cake Crusader' in line with my twitter feed in case you are confused.

Ratings for Reepham railway station based on 2 visits.

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.0	5.0	5.75	8.0	7.63	6.48

Route

Click here to download 35 mile Norwich Reepham loop gpx to your GPS