After a good few years of not cycling, we decided that this year it was time to hop back on to our bikes and find some cycling caches! So this Saturday we headed off to do the CBN (Chelmsford Blackwater Navigation) Cycle Route Series. This was an extension to the original CBN series along the canal that we had walked in 2011 meaning that we still had caches CBN 113 to CBN 141 left to find.

The series used National Cycle Route 1 which was along some very quiet country lanes. This made the ride very easy and enjoyable as we encountered very little traffic. After grabbing caches 113 and 114 by car, we found a good parking spot at CBN 115 and pulled the bikes out ready for our ride! I’d purchased a Garmin Oregon Bike Mount to make navigating a bit easier. Although there isn’t much to it (A bit of plastic and a few cable ties!) the GPS was pretty stable on the handle bars and stayed in place for the whole of the ride.

We were soon in the swing of it! The caches were pretty much all 35mm film pots and we didn’t need to use the GPS to find them. We just read the hint, left the GPS attached to the bike and hopped off to find and sign. I think if we were walking the series this would have been a bit boring, but as we were cycling it was nice to have quick finds without any hassle.

The caches were rather ingeniously attached to their hint items using spring clips which held them in place and stopped them going walkabouts. Some caches were a little fiddly to remove from their holders, but on the whole it was a very good way of ensuring the caches were where they should be.

Daffodils lined the road sides as we cycled up and down the lanes. There was also quite a lot of cherry blossom on the trees and other pretty wild flowers which brightened up the ride a bit.

On the ride around we passed a very interesting pub called The Cats. Unfortunately it looked closed, but outside was a rather interesting “sculpture” which caught our eye!

The ride was about an 11 mile round trip where we were able to find 31 caches. The sunshine and cycle ride were definitely the highlights of the trip, but the caches were a nice extra bonus to bring us to that area.