I’ve been staying in Mercure’s Norwich hotel on the outskirts of the city. Because it has lots of guests who work for the offshore industry, and who leave early from the nearby airport, breakfast starts at 5am. That’s my kind of breakfast time; perfect for golden-hour photographers. Not that I took advantage this morning. The weather was forecast to be poor in the morning but with sunshine in the afternoon.

So, I had breakfast at a “normal” time, did some work at the hotel and left for a 50 mile mostly-gravel ride in the late afternoon. As it’s a book loop I’ve not uploaded that file to Strava so the one displayed here is the journey from the hotel to Norwich central station from where I started the loop. Almost all of my curated routes start and end at rail stations.

To and from the hotel I’ve been using the Marriott’s Way rail trail. This is well used by cyclists and pedestrians but, sadly, some of the cyclists don’t slow down anywhere near enough. The worst offenders by far are the food delivery riders on electric bikes. As can be seen (but not heard) in many other cities, the bikes favoured by these riders are not pedal-assit models but motorbikes in all but name.

I brake and slow down to a crawl when I pass pedestrians, but the delivery rider I photographed on the Marriott’s Way this afternoon was going at a fair old lick, kicking up dust, and didn’t slow down when nearing pedestrians. It must be terrifying to be a close passed by such a motorbike. They’re not legal in the UK but, the police appear to turn a blind eye.

ALSO: 36 days in and I’ve had my first mechanical. Bit of a weird one. My right hand pedal worked itself loose and I hadn’t noticed because I had been pedalling on loose gravel. I think I caught it just in time — a few more pedal revolutions and I could have been looking at a stripped thread. I know that because this unloosening has happened to me once before. When touring in Zambia in the 1990s I had a left hand pedal drop off — I hadnt noticed the loosening because I had been riding through gloopy mud. On that occasion the crank thread was fully stripped and a blacksmith welded a steel cradle to keep the pedal on the alu crank. It’s a beautful piece of work — the bike is long gone, but I still have that cleverly fastened pedal and crank.