Cake Crusader sportive 19. (News of 2016 thing of the year competition)

Sportive 19,

The Café Brooke,

Changed hands now Rural Kitchen

Today was the first cafe cycle ride of 2016 and as part of it I announced the 2016 Cake Crusader thing of the year competition. Last year you may remember the 2015 thing was the cheese scone and there was much excitement around cheese scone of the year (see cheese scone year winner announced). Well after the 46 cheese scones I tried during 2015 (with 19 served cold!) plus the 11 I had during the cheese scone off final I'm not sure I'm ready to eat another one for a while.

However before the big announcement it was time for the ride which happened to be the 19th Cake Crusader sportive. It was exactly two years ago that I held the first sportive so I thought it would be good to return to that first venue, The Cafe in Brooke, to see how it and my now army of cycling guests had changed during that time.

The sportive had attracted double the first one with 8 people (including the original 4) lining up for pre ride faffing about at race HQ. The main chatter was focused on clothing in the unseasonably mild weather we had been having. Regular readers of my Cycling Guests Top Cycling Tip will know many tips cover this topic with tip 9 that states 'When you set off on a ride you should start off feeling cold or you will get too hot later on' being particularly apt. This obviously led to me opt for an appropriate triple layering clothing solution. It was clear not everyone had been paying attention to these excellent tips as my guests ranged from chilly single layering (pure madness) to unnecessarily toastie 4 layering (quite wrong) approaches. 

Line up for 2nd anniversary Sportive ride

Despite some dubious clothing options in place we enjoyed an uneventful 20 mile ride, at differing body temperatures, round the villages South of Norwich to today's destination. It was my 4th visit to the Cafe in Brooke and according to cycle cafe reviewing rules only the 3 most recent ratings will be used in calculating a cafes overall score. This is to make sure ratings are current so the oldest set (which were The Cafe in Brooke's worst) would be discarded today.

Some very hot and cold people arriving at The Cafe, Brooke

On arrival we caused a right kerfuffle at the counter as we reviewed the cake selection and fought over the remaining sausage rolls. I was glad to see that everyone who had a sausage roll, correctly, also had a scone or cake as well in order that they would be allowed input into rating activity.

Cake selection in action

We had two first timers, James and Dan, on the ride today. Newbies always cause problems on their first ride awarding ridiculously high marks and making unwanted suggestions as to how I could "improve" we cafe ratings approach. I normally counter these issues by ignoring their markings and suggesting that if they would like to rate cafes in a different way they may like to consider setting up their own cafe cycle blog which I'm sure I would subscribe to and find it both informative and entertaining. I have decided that to avoid having to keep going through this rigmarole every time that I will produce a pamphlet to explain the basics and correct etiquette for new cycling guests to read before their initial ride, including a short test.

As this work is not yet complete I nipped any unhelpful newbie behaviour in the bud today by making it clear that I wasn't interested in any of their views but expected them to observe proceedings for next time, which judging by the stunned silence seemed to do the trick.

Some of the cakes and drinks ready for rating

I collected the ratings from my more experienced cycling guest, who were now well versed in proceedings, and updated my spreadsheet. This resulted in moving The Cafe in Brooke several places up my cafe league table with good scores across the board and into my highly recommended category..

It was now time for the big announcement as to what my thing of the year would be in 2016. With a hushed crowd I explained that I had decided to go for the cyclists energy giving friend of the flapjack. There were gasps from my cycling guest who had not seen that coming. I held an impromptu Question and Answer session to explain how the competition works

1. Whenever I go to a cafe or tearoom in 2016 then if it sells proper flapjack I will always try some in addition or instead of cake.
2. I will rate it on 

• texture and composition (not too sticky or crumbly or hard)
• appearance and size (bigger the better but a good geometrical shape)
• taste

3. In December I will revisit the cafes (by bike of course) that provided the best 10 pieces throughout the year and purchase some more

4. I will then hold a flapjack off to decide the winner.

5. The winner will receive one of my coveted cake crusaders winner certificates that I will make with my colouring set.

Once the announcement was complete and the buzz had died down we set off again to complete our ride. Not surprisingly the only talk on the way home was flapjack based. I think I have really shaken things up in the world of cycle cafe reviewing so expect 2016 to be utterly flapjastic. 

If you know of where some particularly good flapjack can be found then let me know.

Scores for The Cafe based on last 3 visits

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
7.17	8.33	6.67	8.33	6.83	7.47

Today's route

Click link to down load 30 mile Norwich Poringland gpx file for your GPS

How did it go? (Review of 2015 cafe cycle stats and goals)

Review of  2015 cafe cycle stats and goals

Before I undertake my first cafe ride in 2016 it is important that I check up and learn from the critical cafe cycle goals that I sensibly set myself at the start of the year. You may recall I put them in place in order to make sure that my cafe cycling activities had proper focus and governance and to make sure that I was developing as a cafe cycle reviewer. I still find it hard to believe that I was able to do any meaningful cafe cycling before I had put these bad boys in place.

With all the useful information I have been collecting on my cafe cycle data capture spreadsheet I can now drill down and am able to present the information graphically to help make it both fascinating and meaningless.

Goal 1. Cycle to more than the 80 different cafes I visited in 2014 by avoiding any more near death experiences this year.(Measure: number of cafes visited greater than 80,  number near death experiences less than 1)

This went exceptionally well on both counts. Unlike 2014 I managed to avoid any new near death experiences (brown line) and thus complete a full year of cafe cycle reviewing. I also smashed my target reviewing 87 UK cafes (blue line) plus an additional 58 posted about (but not formally reviewed) either in Europe or on special non reviewing rides (did I mention I was on the BBC? and also set a cafe cycling world record).

Goal 2. Record number of bike miles covered and other cafe cycle data to produce even more fascinating cycle/cafe/cake related meaningless facts. 

My cycle cafe data capture spreadsheet has been a great success and as a result I can now deliver the following fascinating 2015 facts:

• Covered 3741 cake miles at a rate of 25.80 miles per cake
• Travelled 1204 train or car miles to get to and from cycle rides
• Eaten 145 cakes and 47 cheese scones 
• Been on the bike for 11days 16hrs 15m 03s which is a cake every 1hr 56mins 
• Average cafe cycle trip speed of 13.35 mph
• Had 8 punctures while cycling guests had 11
• Been accompanied by 23 different cycling guests over 92 accompanied rides

My cycling guest cake choice break down is 

Whereas my cake choice break down is

You will notice I have a good spread over the classic cake big 5 of Chocolate, Victoria, Carrot, Lemon and Coffee but my guests won't go near a Victoria sponge although they love a bit of Bakewell tart. Chocolate cake continues to prove to be everyone's most popular.

My guests guest hot drink break down 

Whereas my hot drink breakdown is

Goal 3. Campaign to stop cafes serving cake on top of the serviette, as this renders the napkin useless for mouth wiping activity (Measure: Cake serviette serving coefficient is greater than 0.8)

This was going very well with publicity and support on Twitter and Facebook plus a mention of the campaign in the local paper (did I mention there was a double page spread about me,pages 28 and 29, in the Eastern daily press). There was even a call to get a petition up to get parliament to make this practice illegal. Five of the cafes who had served cake this way publicly promised that they would not let it happen in future. However after all this hard work 3 of the last 4 cafes I visited in 2015 gave me cake served on the napkin making the figures look far less impressive. Cake serviette serving coefficient is currently standing at 0.891304348. 

There is still work to be done, remember #KeepCakeoffServiettes. 

Goal 4. Encourage all cafes to follow the old rhyme 'cheese Scone hot, fruit scone not' at all times (Measure: Cheese scones served warm factor of over 90%) 

Poor progress here I'm afraid. Of the 47 cheese scones I have had to date only 29 have been warmed with 18 arriving cold giving a cheese scone served warm factor of only 62%. Which is exactly the same as at end of March. Despite my campaign being mentioned on page 28 of the local paper and the publicity around cheese scone of the year this remains a low point for me.

Goal 5. Set the world record for most cafes visited on a calorie neutral bike ride in one day (Measure: Cycle to 20 cafes in one day as per the official calorie neutral bike ride rules)

Great success (see is it a record) as I set the world record and have a certificate, that I made with my colouring set, plus an article in the local paper to prove it. 

Article on world record in local press

However it was a very silly thing to do so I won't be doing it again.

Overall very pleased with 2015 cafe cycle progress (did I mention I was on the BBC and had two articles in the local paper?) and I look forward to more cafe cycle challenges next year. 

Data collection. (Harley's, Norwich)

Harleys,

Norwich,

Opening times Mon- Sat 09:00-17:00,

Sun 10:00-16:00

To make sure I had the best possible statistics for my 2015 end of year report I wanted to squeeze in one last ride this year. Fortunately Big George was in need of a cycle as well so agreed to be my cycling guest. 

Normally we aim to start our rides at 9.00am, then as I wait for his arrival, at about 9.10am Big George will text me to explain why he will be late before turning up at 9.30am ready to start. This morning I got everything in place as usual to set off at 9:00am and waited for his text. However today there was no text and he just turned up at 9:30am thus cutting out the unnecessary texting step. Despite it being the same for over two years he had apparently remembered the start time wrong. I recorded it as a late start in my 2015 cafe cycle statistics spreadsheet and added 'forgot start time' to the cycling guests excuses list.

We were going on a 35 mile loop to Acle and back hoping to find a cafe open there. On the way we compared our Christmases. It turned out we were in exactly the same trouble. Since Christmas Mrs Big George and Mrs Crusader had both sat on their sofas and scoffed all their Christmas chocolate gifts in a couple of binge sittings. After which they had both felt bad about themselves so blamed me and Big George for buying, or allowing people to buy them, something they liked as a present. Apparently it is also our fault that they need to eat so much chocolate all in one go as we have been told it isn't physically possible to spread consumption out over the whole festive period. I know this I foolishly suggested it. Mrs Crusader has now implemented total chocolate lock down at Crusader towers, not just for her, but no one is allowed to bring the stuff into house as if they did she would be forced to eat it against her will.

Apart from this Christmas seemed to have gone well, as was our ride and we soon arrived in Acle. Unfortunately of the two cafes I had lined up one was shut over Christmas and we couldn't find the other one. I updated my 2015 cafe cycle statistics spreadsheet to add one to the shut and one to the missing in action cafe count.

As I was aware of the risk of closed cafes at this time of year I had a plan C which was to continue back to Norwich and go to Harleys, a cafe near the river on the outskirts of Norwich.

Harleys brands itself as the cafe by the river, which is sort of true although there is a busy road separating you from the nearest river bank. However in between the cars going by and assuming no one has parked in front of you, you do get some nice views from the small continental pavement style outdoor seating area. As one of the tables was in use and the others blocked by a parked car we opted for a window seat inside instead.

Harleys taken from the river bank side of the road

Harleys seemed to specialise more in sandwiches and ice cream so there was only a carrot cake and a few mince pies in their cake selection meaning I could only award a low effective cake selection (ECS) rating. 

Cake selection only featuring carrot cake and mince pies

I was glad Big George opted for a latte as it helped boost the poor 2015 guest hot drink (GHD) latte count which continues to languish at the bottom of the GHD popularity table.

Our drinks and my cake arrived. I'm sure you can guess from the photo how disappointed I was to see the cake served on it's serviette further impacting the cake serviette serving coefficient target for the year. Remember #Keepcakeoffserviettes.

Cake, sadly served on its Napkin, and our drinks

My hot chocolate was nice enough and the carrot cake was perfectly fine but neither were absolutely top draw so I was very surprised when Big George declared his latte coffee to be very good indeed and awarded a high GHDQ mark. Further research of other reviews of Harleys concurs with Big George that the coffee here is very good.

Stepping in at the last minute Harleys had done well and looks like a good stop for coffee lovers. It also had the advantage of being close to the end of the ride so we didn't have far to go to get home.

I now have all the 2015 cafe cycle data collected so I can spend the next few days analysing it with a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit, correction plain biscuit.

Scores for Harleys

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.00	8.00	3.00	5.50	6.00	5.70

Route

Click her to download 35 mile Norwich Acle loop GPX file for your GPS

New Boy. (CoCoes Cafe Deli, Swaffham)

CoCoes Café Deli,

Swaffham,

Opening times Mon 09:00-15:00, Tue-Thur 09:00-17:00,

Fri 09:00-18:00, Sat 08:00-18:00

Recommended 

Today I was pleased when a friend of mine, Jim, texted me to suggest we went out on a cycle ride. He had recently got a brand new road bike and wanted to try it out for the first time. I liked the sound of this as there is nothing I enjoy more than patronising a newbie cyclists and I was also keen to get out and work off some of those excess Christmas pounds.

I suggested we started from his house near Dereham and loaded my bike in the back of the car for the drive out. When I arrived New Boy Jim was already waiting for me proudly standing by his shiny new steed. I asked him about his bike spec but all he could tell me was he chose it as he liked the colour, grey and red. It was clear I had much work to do here and was further disappointed to find that New Boy Jim had not been following a number of the useful cycling guest cycling top tips (see top tips) which regularly appear in these posts. He had not put on winter tyres or a winter mud guard and the term hi viz gilet meant nothing to him.

Despite this we set off on the ride I had prepared out to Swafham. It wasn't long before I spotted that New Boy Jim's saddle was far too low, a particular pet hate of mine, and I insisted on raising it to a more appropriate height. As we set of again he next committed another new cyclists error of pedalling in too hard a gear at a slow pedal rate which I also suggested he corrected to make sure he didn't burn his legs out in the first few miles. 

Progress continued to be slow so I was left with no choice but to remove the stabilisers on the back wheel. New Boy Jim did not seem happy about this but I assured him he was unlikely to fall off and (as recommended by team doctor Dr Hans) I now always carry a plaster and some gauze in case of a grazed knee, although I made it quite clear I wouldn't be kissing anything better.

With stabilisers removed and saddle adjusted confidence started to grow and speed increased. It therefore wasn't long before we made it to CoCoes Cafe Deli in Swafham.

Outside Co Coes cafe in Swafham

CoCoes Cafe Deli is down a little alley attached to the side of Strattons Hotel. There is an outside courtyard seating area, which we were tempted by as the weather was so mild but opted for a table in the more cosy indoor seating area instead.

Outside courtyard seating area

There may not have been many cakes in the selection but they were all very interesting and unusual so attracted a respectable effective cake selection (ECS) rating. I opted for blueberry and almond cake and New Boy Jim cranberry and mincemeat slice.

Very effective cake selection

Our drinks and cakes soon arrived and I thought my hot chocolate was very good with a nice bitter dark chocolate taste. I also found my blueberry and almond cake to be quite excellent and awarded high cake taste quality (CTQ) marks.

Cakes and drinks

My cycling guests only have 3 things to do on a ride.
1. Follow me throughout the ride, even if we seem to be going through a ploughed field, as I'm in charge of navigation.
2. Take a photo of me outside the cafe, preferably without including their finger in the shot.
3. Help rate the cafe stop, especially the Guest Hot Drink Quality (GHDQ) score.

Up to this point New Boy Jim had performed well in the first two tasks so I explained to him the intricacies of cafe reviewing. As usual with newbies his scoring was all over the place with ratings justifications bearing no resemblance to the proposed scores and the new reviewer ratings coefficient had to be applied to all his marks (i.e. I ignored them). He was, however, particularly impressed to get 3 cups of tea out of the generous teapot for one.

CoCoes cafe Deli had turned out to be an excellent first cafe stop for New Boy Jim to try out cafe cycle reviewing and sets a high bar for future rides he may come on. With good quality food and drink I have included it in my recommended category and suggest a visit.

On the way back New Boy Jim's confidence grew further and he was keen to add his own cycling guest cycling top tip.

Cycling guest cycling top tip No. 39. To improve your descending skills on steep hills shout Weeeeeeee all the way down.

He clearly still has much to learn.

Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
7.75	7.00	6.00	8.00	7.00	7.15

Route

Click here to download 36 mile Dereham Swafham loop gpx file for your gps

Lets go fly a kite. (Cafe Jungle, Costessey)

Café Jungle,

Costessey,

Opening times Mon-Sun 10:00-17:00,

Recommended 

Despite it being rather windy I felt it was important to try and get one last cafe cycle ride in before Christmas, my 85th of the year. Using the gift of fibbing I managed to persuade Chris (Mrs Crusader) that it wasn't too windy to go cycling and she therefore reluctantly agreed to be today's cycling guest.

My planned route was a 30 mile loop with our cafe stop, the Jungle cafe at Costessey, coming towards the end. As we set off from race HQ it soon became clear just how strong the wind was and there was much yelping and screaming coming from behind as the cross winds tried to push Chris off her bike. My suggestion that this was a good way of improving both fitness and her bike handling skills didn't seem to help. I ignored all comments suggesting I had said it wasn't going to be windy today claiming I couldn't hear what she was saying due to the strong wind.

Picture of the wind which is unfortunately invisible

Fortunately we had the wind predominately helping us on the second half of the ride so progress sped up and we soon reached the Urban Jungle Garden centre where we found the Jungle Cafe in amongst the palm trees.

Outside Cafe Jungle

After parking our bikes we went in side to find an exciting environment of tropical plants with seating areas in between. This was the first Jungle based cafe I had been too and, despite the lack of celebrities trying to get out of there, I awarded a high atmosphere and ambiance score.

However I was then presented with a cafe cycle ride reviewing dilemma as there were virtual no cakes on display for me to judge the effective cake selection (ECS). I enquired about the surprising lack of cake, it transpired that this was the last day Cafe Jungle was open until 1st February as they were about to extend their kitchen meaning they were basically out of their normal range of cake. They only had some brownies and individual bakewell tarts left. I decided that it would be unfair to rate the ECS in these unusual circumstances so gave an average ECS score and will update properly on a return visit.

In terms of coffee there was a selection of beans that you could chose from which would be freshly ground for you. This is good for coffee lovers but as a consequence they didn't do fancy coffees like mochas and cappuccinos etc just proper tasting stuff. Chris, who normally mochas, went for a Nicaraguan bean.

We took a seat in the tropical sofa seating area where our drinks and cakes were delivered to the table. 

Tropical sofa area

As a nice surprise we were given a bonus piece of bakewell tart to go with our brownies as it would have otherwise gone to waste and they could clearly spot a cake lover when they saw one. The hot chocolate was nice and hot and Chris also enjoyed her coffee but would go for a stronger bean next time.

Cakes and drinks

We both liked the Jungle cafe but because of the forth coming refurbishments I didn't think we had done it justice so I will definitely be back in the spring for the full treatment and recommend a visit. (Note I did return the following year and it was very good).

It seemed strange to leave the tropical environment and return to a grey and blustery landscape especially as the wind seemed to have picked up, which was a shame as we had to ride directly into it for the last few miles. For some reason my suggestion that we could go and fly my kite in the park when we got back didn't go down as well as I had hoped.

Scores based on 2 visits

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.875	7.5	5.75	7.25	8.00	7.08

Route

Click here to download 31 mile Norwich Weston Longville loop gpx file for your gps

Worrying trend. (Little Red Roaster, Norwich)

Little Red Roaster,

Norwich,

Opening times Mon-Sat 08:00-17:00,

Highly Recommended 

As it was such a mild day I thought it would be a good chance to squeeze in a quick cafe cycle ride before proper winter turns up. I was able to persuade Chris (Mrs Crusader) to join me as today's cycling guest on the condition that I promised not to go too far. I therefore planned a short 20ish mile loop ending up at one of the many unvisited Norwich coffee shops currently on my cafe and tearoom to do list.

Unlike me she had not checked the weather forecast and had over layered setting off in cycle kit more appropriate for an Arctic expedition. This obviously led to much de zipping and layer removal as the ride progressed. Apparently the warm weather was my fault and I was handed a pile of her clothes to carry for the rest of the ride.

Despite these delays, in what seemed like no time, we completed our loop and were heading for the Little Red Roaster coffee shop. There are actually two Little Red Roaster coffee shops in Norwich but we were going to their first one in Grove Road.

Outside the Little Red Roaster by the continental style outdoor seating area

It certainly lived up to it's 'little' name as it has a bigger continental style outdoor seating area than the space available inside. Here there is a long table and a breakfast bar facility available where you can sit and watch the world go by. Which we did.

Breakfast bar facility

Once inside it was time to check out the cakes and award the effective cake selection (ECS) score. It was not the biggest selection with only a couple of cakes, brownies and flapjacks qualifying but they all looked very tempting so I could still award a decent ECS rating.

Cake selection

I went for toffee and banana and Chris choose raspberry and white chocolate to go with our hot chocolate and Mocha. These were all soon delivered to us in the breakfast bar area.

Cakes and drinks in breakfast bar area

The Hot chocolate was excellent and a proper chocolate tasting drink. I awarded a very high hot chocolate quality (HCQ) score. Chris thought her Mocha also tasting extremely nice but she likes her drinks to be nuclear thermally warm and this one was only hot so she docked half a mark off her guest hot drink quality (GHDQ) score for lack of temperature.

I moved on to the cake but to my horror, for the second cafe running, the cake had been served on top of the serviette rending it useless. 

Cake served on serviette. #keepcakeoffserviettes

Chris didn't know what the fuss was about and suggested I take the cake off the serviette before eating it. I explained this would not help as in the process of removing the cake my fingers would get crumby and as the napkin was now covered in cake I would have no way of wiping them clean (unless I did it on my trousers which she is always telling me off for so also a non starter). I just had to work through the cake to retrieve the serviette. Remember #keepcakeoffserviettes.

Ruined Serviette

Despite the serviette issue the cakes were really good and I awarded a high cake taste quality (CTQ) rating.

All in all the little red rooster proved to be an excellent stop scoring well in all categories and earning a highly recommended status. Defiantly worth a visit.

I returned home and vowed to up my game on my keep cake off serviettes campaign as standards seem to have slipped. I checked my cafe cycle ride data spreadsheet to find that up until last week then this year, of the cafes providing serviettes, only 7 from 92 visited had placed the cake on the serviette but with two new examples of this practice in last two visits the number is now 9 out of 94 which is a shocking 10%. My work here is clearly not done.

Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
8.50	7.50	6.0	7.50	7.25	7.35

Route

click here to download 21 mile Norwich Barford loop gpx file for your GPS