A much touted — and true if you go hard enough — benefit of long-distance, multi-day cycle touring is the fat loss. I’m getting skinnier day by day. My highest calorie burn so far on this trip, on 7th June, has been 4,597 calories and I’m burning about 2,000 on an average day. Within reason I can therefore eat anything with zero guilty conscience. So when I made a slight detour to eat in the courtyward cafe of the Alder Carr farm shop on the outskirts of Needham Market I didn’t have to whisper to myself, “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.” Instead, cycle tourists mumble “fill yer boots!”

A burnt peach and feta fattoush salad was followed by a plum frangipane tart with the farm shop’s own blackcurrant ice cream. Alder Carr was the 2024 winner of the best small farm shop in Britain awarded by Farm Retail Association earlier this year. And the farm shop’s blackcurrant icecream won the grand champion accolade in the Great British Food Awards of 2023.

An hour later and I was hungry again. My body craves fuel.

Shortly after leaving the farm shop I diverted on to a gravel track that ended close to what, going by the number of warning signs, is clearly thought to be a dangerous crossing of the A14. You certainly wouldn’t want to do it with kids.

A short stretch of the old road — complete with de-glassed cats’ eyes — is a cycle path and this leads on to the Old Norwich Road which parallels the A14 and is dotted with Sustrans cycle signs urging motorists to “think bike.” Just as motorists tend to ignore “slow, squirrels” signs and even cutesy boards warning of baby ducks crossing, I saw no evidence of any motorists thinking about my welfare on the old A14.

Earlier today I had the scariest encounter with a speeding motorist I’ve had the whole trip (and there were plenty of psyschopaths on Scottish hairpin roads). I could hear the car coming. It genuinely sounded like a jet and when the guy in the small family car screamed round some bends ahead of me I was tucked into the side, discretion being the better part of valour. He hardly had four wheels on the road and how this particular motorist has yet to kill himself (or others) remains a mystery.

George Monbiot wrote in The Guardian the other day that speeding motorists are invariably men. That hasn’t been my experience. I’ve seen some God awful speeding by women, eager to finish their journeys as soon as possible and wholly uncaring about others sharing the road at the same time. I probably don’t register with them. Cyclist? What cyclist? Scary.

I’m now in the upscale Ipswich Novotel with a rumbling belly and digitally researching the local eateries.

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Answer to the riddle: I thought it was “time” but Google says it’s “footprints.”