We arranged a departure time for 3am; a full hours rest after our arrival. Our group assembled but just missed a large group who left at precisely 3am. We left instead at just gone the hour. As chief navigator I was worried about a comment on the route sheet that said not to miss the narrow right turn just 200m after the rest stop. In my mind this meant “a quiet un-signposted road you will miss…”.

Soon after we left we came to a quiet road and so took it. It felt immediately wrong and everybody wanted to turn around. I would have agreed had not my wife’s mobile rang. Normally I hate these technological devils, but I had reluctantly agreed to take it with me in case of emergency. Therefore I stopped and by moonlight in the middle of a country road between open rolling fields I worked out which button to press to answer this emergency.

“I’m back fro shish party wiv friendsh and we’ve got the dansh mat out and we’ve been drinking cocktailsh!” announced an excited voice. “Would you like one?”
“let me think about that” I replied. This situation was going to take some serious and sensitive dealing with …
“I must go darling, we’re still riding and they’re just leaving me behind”
“Oh, Oksh. shBe carfulsh dear. Lovesh you”
“Yes I love you too. Goodnight”

As we rode onwards throughout the night it was an experience I hope to repeat. It was a beautiful night, it was astounding scenery (whilst not hills etc., I am talking here about trees and cows silhouettes against the sky line) and it was just a brilliant thing to do.

In fact I have to stop my narrative here to thank the organisers. Not only did they provide a superb ride, a route sheet that was highly accurate yet compressed onto one A4 sheet and transport home again; they also avoided my personal hatred of organised rides, the insurance, documentation and bureaucracy that today’s world dictates. This wasn’t an organised ride. The word had got out that some people were riding this route and anybody was welcome to join them. Transport home was of your own organising, but there was a coach back to London you could book. The route was to either follow somebody else or to offer a donation towards the printing costs and get a route sheet.

The route sheet was 100% accurate, other than one area where we all congregated at a T-junction. The options were left or right, yet it wasn’t clear where to go (this may have been a fault of an earlier missed junction in the darkness of night). Some organised people with Ordnance Survey maps consulted them, others like me held a damp finger in the air. We all came up with the same conclusion and turned right. A moments panic ensued at the first bend when we encountered a rider returning. His first words first confused then relaxed us “that way is signposted for XXXXX which definitely isn’t the way we need to go”. At first we thought that XXXXX was ahead, then we realised it was shown as behind us on the sign we’d passed. Onwards we ploughed until we realised we were indeed back on our route sheets.

Pre dawn I had another of those “I’ve been here before” moments. This time though it was a major dual carriageway (the A14/A140 junction) just after Needham Market. I was riding with Andy and we were discussing my lights, I was just showing him how far in advance they were lighting by the fact that they were reflecting back from a green roundabout sign in the distance. Then I realised that the route sheet said to take the second exit, which I knew well and was not only a dual carriageway but a main route up to Norfolk and so I knew it to be busy. I started worrying again.

I needn’t have worried as one of the benefits of doing this ride at night is that there is practically no traffic on the roads at all. No cars passed us in either direction as we rode up this main dual carriageway. Even better, after a very short time we turned off of it and headed back onto quiet country roads.