Norfolk Cafe Cycle Tour Sportive 13. (36 miles Pulham Market via Goodies food hall cafe)

Sportive 13,

Goodies Food Hall Cafe,

Pulham Market,

Open Mon-Sat 9.00-4.00, Sun 9.00-3.30

Saturday saw the 13th Norfolk Cafe Cycle Tour Sportive head south to Goodies food hall cafe near Pulham Market. Sadly there were a number of late call offs due to illness, haircuts and building work but six riders still made it to race HQ for the start of the ride.

Sportive riders lining up at Rcae HQ

It turned out to be the best organised peleton ever as all six riders kept together in a neat formation throughout the ride enabling proper drafting and therefore a good speed to be maintained throughout. Pats on back all round.

There was much chatter in the group especially as I told them that tomorrow (Sunday) I would once again being riding to a selection of the Norfolk and Norwich open studios where artists display their art. I explain I was yet to develop a suitable system for judging art by when Gwyn (spiritual cyclist) suggested that art was an abstract and subjective experience that was meant to generate emotions and not scores. I told her that I understood what each word she was saying to me meant individually but strung together in the way she had made no sense at all. Surely everything needs to be able to be entered on to a spreadsheet, even art, or what's the point.

We continued to discuss art all the way to Goodies and I promised I would let her know my top 10 bits of art from tomorrow but apparently art doesn't work like that..

On arrival we parked the bikes in the outside seating field which has attractive views of the countryside, including the A140 in the distance, and went inside to the cafe through the food hall.

Outside Goodies food hall Cafe

Inside was very busy and we had to wait sometime in the queue to be served while old people purchased lots of pots of tea. This did have the bonus of allowing plenty of time to check out the cake selection and award the effective cake selection (ECS) score. It was certainly a good display of cakes with most things covered, with the only exception of a big chocolate cake, so I was able to awarded a higher ECS than on my previous visit. (see.If it ain't broke don't fix it)

Good selection of cakes so a good ECS

Our group also managed to review the whole drinks gambit with hot chocolate, tea, cappuccino, mocha and latte all covered so it was going to be interesting to see what the guest hot drink quality (GHDQ) rating would be.

We sat at a table and started to discuss cake and drink quality. There was some initial disappointment that the cheese scones and sausage rolls had not been warmed (although as sausage rolls are not cake this was irrelevant). I felt if the rule of 'cheese scone hot, fruit scone not', had been followed then my cheese scone would have had top marks as I felt it was a good one. The cakes (carrot and blackcurrant Victoria) were both nice but we felt had been over iced and a bit less would have been better.

Drinks, cakes and scones ready for reviewing

The drinks got a mixed reception ranging from good to disappointing, the overriding feeling was they needed to be a bit stronger but overall still achieved a mid range score.

I added up the totals to see that Goodies food hall cafe had come out with a similar score to my previous visit which once again demonstrated the consistency of my ratings system. Goodies is a nice destination especially if you want to buy some food type gifts and as an added bonus you can already place your order for this years Christmas tree which is a real plus for those people who like to get their Christmas planning under way early.

Get your Christmas tree early this year

The peleton were also well behaved on the way home and kept up a high speed. When we got back I excitingly checked my records and announced that this was the highest average speed maintained on any sportive. Everyone cheered loudly (at least in my mind) but Gwyn (spiritual cyclist) suggested that cycling was more about the experience of the journey and not the statistics at the destination but again I couldn't understand what she meant and hurried off to update my sportive data information spreadsheet to feed into this months cycling report.

Scores for Goodies Food Hall Cafe based on 2 visits

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.0	6.5	7	7.5	6.0	6.60

Route

Click link 36 mile Norwich - Pulham Market loop to download GPX file for your GPS