Coffee and Cake Ride #2
My latest adventure was nice 5 mile family ride around
Cockermouth, which allowed me to continue our quest to try all the local coffee shops
and tea rooms to find Cumbria's Best Coffee and Cake Stop in the World!
The Ride
While this was just a short family ride of 5 miles, and not
an epic 100 miler, they are still great fun! Riding with the kids is always
entertaining and an opportunity to go exploring. At Go Cumbria, we want to promote the
outdoors to everyone; young or old, new or experienced.
The ride begins by trying to attach the bike trailer onto
the bike, the arm never seems to go where you want it to, and when it finally
does the bike starts to tip and you have to start all over again!
After a busy morning at nursery school Baby David was chilling
in her car seat in the bike trailer being taken around by Daddy, while big
sister David was on her own mountain bike and Mrs D on her shopper.
In Cockermouth we are lucky to have a cycle track which is
kid friendly, it is known as the Greenway but it is the old railway line that
linked Cockermouth up to Penrith. A bit
of history (from Wikipedia).
The Cockermouth,
Keswick and Penrith Railway (CK&PR) was an English railway company
incorporated by Act of Parliament on 1 August 1861, to build a
line connecting the town of Cockermouth with the London and North Western Railway
(LNWR) West Coast Main Line at Penrith.
Arrangements for the use of the stations at either end (Cockermouth was already
served by the Cockermouth and Workington Railway
(C&WR)) were included. Passenger and goods traffic was worked by the LNWR
and mineral traffic by the North Eastern Railway, both of whom had
shares in the company (the NER inheriting its holding from the Stockton and Darlington Railway,
which had encouraged the promotion of the line). The line was 31 1⁄2 miles (50.7 km) in length, and had eight intermediate stations.
Recently otters have come back into the Tom Rudd Beck which
runs along the side of the old railway. Mrs D thought she spotted one as we
went whizzing past so me and my daughter went back to explore, unfortunately we
didn’t find any (no doubt scaring it off as I accidentally slid a bit quickly
down the muddy bank!). The path is also
a great place to spot red squirrels and rabbits, and I have seen many on my
runs along the Greenway.
From the Greenway we had a stop at a local park for the
eldest to play whilst the baby slept.
From the park we headed into town for a cake and coffee stop.
The Coffee Stop
Just to remind you what our scoring criteria is:
1 - Seat
Comfort: The first thing to test after a hard graft in the saddle is how
refreshing, relaxing, comforting and tender the visited establishments chairs
are to our weather hardened and weary buttocks.2 - Bike Friendliness: The next thing to consider is how bike friendly the place is, this isn't just about having somewhere to leave our bikes while we go inside, but it's also about staff friendliness too, if someone fails to ask how our ride is going or laughs at our stumbling around on a polished floor in cleats while wearing ridiculous lycra, that's going to knock your score down too.
3 - Cakes: When it comes to riding around the Lake District tasting cakes at different places, what kind of a service would we be providing to you the reader if we didn't taste as many cakes as we possibly could... this one is for you Cumbria.
4 - Cake Choice: Very important this one, we at Go Cumbria love a good cake, but we also love starring at a choice of cakes panicking about what to choose. This category should act as a good moderator for anywhere that offers the worlds best Lemon Drizzle Cake with Ice Cream Dressing... but nothing else.
5 - Coffee / Tea: Much like the cake tasting, the importance of a good brew should not be underestimated mid ride. By the power of Greyskull a boost of warm caffeine can be the difference between cycling home or calling the wife in tears for an emergency evacuation.
Overall Rating: A summary of the above with a max score of five Go Cumbria Chainrings
Coffee
and Cake Review – The Lanes Café, Cockermouth:
...........
1 -
Seat Comfort: We sat outside being a nice day and the baby was still
sleeping in the bike trailer so we wanted to make sure we could see her. This unfortunately meant that the metal table
and chairs weren’t the best. We've given it 2 chain rings.
2 - Bike Friendliness: You could prop your bikes up outside but limited visibility if you were sitting inside and nowhere to chain them up. However, this is made up for by staff friendliness, always served with a smile and great with the kids. When you do take kids they have lots of toys for them to play with and keep them entertained. We've given it 3 chain rings.
3 - Cakes: Me and my daughter had an excellent cheese scone, while my wife had a Chocolate Orange tiffin Cake! We've given it 4 chain rings.
4 - Cake Choice: Always a fantastic selection and range of cake, and every time we’ve been they’ve had different cakes in. We’ve given it 5 chain rings.
5 - Coffee / Tea: Unfortunately let down in this area, the coffee’s we had were disappointing. We've given it 1 chain rings.
Overall Rating: Overall we've given The Lane’s Café, Cockermouth 4 chain rings.
Once we were all refreshed it was back up the hill and home!
We hope you all have a great half-term and get a chance to
get out and have some family fun!
Owen
Go Cumbria Team
No comments:
Post a Comment