Ducks in Danbury#

Sun Apr 26 14:41:16 2026

My wife says my motorbike is a mid-life crisis thing. I don't agree, but (very reluctantly) concede that I'm easily old enough for one, and one consequence of that is presbyopia. So, last week I ordered varifocals (the presbyopia accompanies the myopia I've had since I was about 11). I picked them up on Friday and was getting stabbing pains in one eye on Saturday morning - by all accounts they take time to get used to and apparently this is to be expected - so I was in two minds about riding anywhere that afternoon. But I did, and it worked out OK (actually, they've been less trouble for riding than in a bunch of other situations).

This is Danbury, just the other side of Chelmsford. Duck pond, island, and duck house in the shape of a church. When I was there, the pond contained two ducks, which you can just about see in the second picture at the base of the left-hand tree, though maybe only if you knew they were there already. So, this the second of two rides where the destination duckpond was not empty, which means I can claim that I'm getting my ducks in a row.

The ride there was along the A414, which is a long straight-ish single carriageway with a rather boring 50mph limit and an even more boring continuous line of cars travelling at 43. There were signs the length of it saying "this is a high collision road", which I suppose explains the speed limit because it was definitely a 60 in 2024.

On the way back I got bored of the A414 quite soon, and decided that if I were going to ride in a straight line forever I might as well hop on the A12 and get home sooner. But then after a couple of miles I saw a sign for the B1007 and decided to come off there and stress-test the satnav.

I'm glad I did. I didn't end up on the B1007 much, but on a sequence of minor roads that took me through Stock, Ingatestone, Fryerning, Mill Green, Hook End and Marden Ash, before emerging into terra cognita just outside Ongar. And Kurviger must have been having a good day because nowhere did it route me down a single track road with strips of gravel down the middle.

My commentary rides still sound more like stream-of-consciousness rides, but there were definitely a few opportunities to practice looking-sideways-to-see-past-the-bend, even when the road appeared at first sight to be bound on both sides by tall hedges, so yeah, I'll take that.

Satnav didn't save the route, so I had to reconstruct it from the dashcam footage. If I watch it back on 5x speed it looks like the Isle of Man TT.

Next destination (unless I find a better one during the week): Chapmore End.