Cambridge to King's Lynn 2025: Ride Report

Ride leader: Claire

2025 brought changes to the Cambridge to King’s Lynn Friday Night Ride. 

Route tweaks due to potholes with wheel-wide cracks; an extra couple of miles to cover and needing a replacement midway stop. 

To give a peak at ‘behind the scenes’ organisation, a ride leader can spend weeks finding a suitable venue, with volunteers, in a sensible location. 

With WWT unavailable, scout associations across the flatlands were emailed but failed to reply. Eventually, we found Christchurch Community Centre but lacked volunteers. 

So Plan B - DIY it! On Friday afternoon, your ride leader, plus Fridays rider George and the ever patient Mr K, set up the venue ready for 4am with the help of CCC’s bemused Bryan. 

Chairs and tables arranged, cakes cut, welcome signs stuck up, teabags loaded in mugs and dinosaur tablecloth laid out. All done, we headed home, knowing we’d be back in 12 hours or so.

George would ride the night route in reverse, to meet us in the vicinity of Welney for the key exchange. Then he'd zoom ahead to get the tea urn fired up.

Would Plan B work?

Skip forward to 2330, Friday Night at Cambridge Train Station. Riders assemble, compare bikes, speculate on how cold the Fens will be this year. Ride briefing done, one rider missing but appears just before midnight, having done the quickest ‘waking from sleep then pedal to start’ imaginable. Brava!

Through a surprisingly quiet Cambridge, unmenaced by delivery scooters, meandering along the riverside thus disturbing the peace of bench-sharing couples. Awkward.

Cyclepaths and narrow lanes took us to Commercial End, then the Swaffhams - both Bulbeck and Prior. Ancient villages with thatched roofs and proper pubs into Reach, site of the Mayday Fair since 1201. A technical section of singletrack followed, joining the zigzag lane to Upware, giving the opportunity to see the riders’ lights strung out in a 2am pedalling conga line. Wildlife count - 2 badgers, 2 hares, several rabbits, an owl and one close encounter with a deer.

Onto Barway; a snack pause and translation exercise using the multilingual road signs by the veg packing plant. Better value than Duolingo!  A fork lift truck operator moves pallets as we head to Ely. Descending from Stuntney, mountain of the Fens!, guided by twinkling lights up Cherry Hill, then through the Porta to peer at the Cathedral.

After some gardening on Ely’s outskirts, we found a high viz clad fellow on Black Bank, fixing a puncture. It was none other than George, who now had an audience for his endeavours. All sorted, key handover completed, he whizzed off and the group made excellent progress on the A1101’s smooth tarmac - no Hundred Foot clunks and thunks this year.

Christchurch’s lights cast a warm welcome into the 4.30am darkness. Shoes off, cake obtained and mugs of coffee kindly dispensed by George, we settled in for a deserved break.

Everyone pitched in for the tidy up - thank you all! After a ‘check you have everything’, a final headcount to ensure no one got locked in and the shutters came down at 5.35am. 

Shoes on, layers on, lights on, ride on to breakfast. 

But first, sunrise.

Burnt orange crept from under low clouds to bring a glowing dawn. We reflected in the water at Three Holes, the junction of Popham’s Eau and the Middle Level 16 Foot River. 

Onward to Upwell, Wisbech and West Walton, the little rise up to the dream-like landscape on Foul Anchor’s river bank indicating that the Sutton swing bridge and King’s Lynn were near.

Team Ferry and Team Road said a temporary goodbye at West Lynn, taking their respective watery and tarmac routes to the Quayside for breakfast.

Many poached eggs, sausages, hash browns and pots of tea later, we dispersed. Some for trains, others in cardinal directions, extending their rides along all compass points - Hunstanton, Norwich, Ely, Cambridge, Stamford and beyond. Satisfied smiles, tired bodies.

Thank you to everyone, ride team, waymakers, kettle-king, washer-ups and chair stackers all. A Friday Night Ride is bigger than the sum of its parts.

To quote from first time Friday rider Bill’s blog: “In some ways riding though the night has an elemental appeal, it brings an appreciation of landscape we perhaps often overlook. We are in motion through the darkness into the light.” Read his thoughts on the experience here.