My wife and I restored a 1960’s tandem last year and ever since we’ve been meaning to have an adventure on it with our friends, who are also the proud owners of old, but rubbish, bikes in decent condition. Potential locations were limited, what with a lowest gear of 48/28 on the tandem. Islay and Jura were too far for a short tour, the Vale of York too dull. We settled on Norfolk and with a little help from konagirl on this forum a route was drawn up.
The bikes in question were our Whitcomb tandem, a Campag Record equipped behemoth from 1963.
A 1973 Raleigh Nimrod the Hunter, a bike the Raleigh catalogue states was inspired by Stephenson, Brunel, Baird and Whittle. Maybe.
And finally a Sun Solo, which was picked up to provide spares for the tandem but turned out to be a pretty cool thing in its own right.
It ended up as something like a Top Gear challenge. Things didn’t look too promising weatherwise so our full four day tour was reduced down two. Then the rather dashing Sun Solo had a rear wheel failure and he ended up on a 2015 Genesis Croix De Fer, which somewhat defeated the point. However we rolled into Holt in beautiful sunshine with a steady 30 miles ahead of us.
The plan was to pedal north west, popping into interesting things on the way. The majority of interesting things in rural Norfolk are churches, and we poked our noses into a couple and stopped at the impressive Binham Priory.
Eventually we arrived at our lunch stop in Wells next the Sea, at about 3pm, to find most of the cafes were astounded that anyone would want sandwiches at this late hour. Eventually one was obliging and we headed on our way east.
The route then curved around to Blakeney Point and the byway along the coast and on to Cromer. This is where the trouble started. The byway proved difficult to find, and then the rough terrain snapped the pannier rack on the tandem. After some fettling it was starting to get dark and progress on the tandem was slower than anticipated.
Eventually we reached Cley Next The Sea, which was delightful. It was especially scenic because of the sunset, but the sunset posed a problem. We had a front light on the tandem, but the loose pannier rack had shaken off the rear light. The other guys had decided, given the short distance, not to bring lights. My wife had a bit of a melt down and it was decided to ride the 4 miles to Holt instead of the 9 to Sheringham youth hostel and drive the rest of the way. To quote Top Gear, we were ambitious but rubbish.
Defeated, the following day we explored the area by steam train then cycled along the Marriott’s Way but without a useable pannier rack and no open bike shops in the vicinity the plan was scuppered. A walk between Cromer and Sheringham and exploration of the Broads by car rounded out the adventure.
Interestingly the only things that broke (a chain on the Genesis and the rack on the tandem) were newish things- the chain 6 months old on a 2015 bike and the rack a pretty much new Tortec one! All the old junk was fine!