Cycle friendly Wetherspoons

[Sweep]

that's quite a few awavey - am impressed

Feel free to add any others that come to mind.


The ones in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft do though have street Sheffield stands outside visible from the pub - I know as I've been. From memory neither are particularly nice pubs but that doesn't mean, as very often the case with spoons, the beer isn't excellent. Seem to vaguely recall drinking something very nice in the Yarmouth one - much appreciated as I'd ridden fully loaded non stop from south London.

They have opened a new one in Gorleston but haven't been.

The Beccles pub is very nice though and had local beer when I popped in for a swift half en route to Reedham Ferry. Agree not cycle friendly as such - seem to remember I fastened my bike to a bit of their street furniture then popped inside for the beer while I friendly local kept an eye on my bike. Then sat outside. One to visit without a bike I think. Thanks for the tip on Bury St Edmunds - one hell of a building - grade 1 listed.

edit - yes I also understand that the short-dated beer thing is urban myth/stuff put around by folk with an agenda

edit edit, may check out the Ipswich one on my pedal back - thanks also for the info on those other two Norwich ones - they sound promising - Queen of Iceni I know as above - modern pub (the cruel might say therefore lacking character) but from experience it is sometimes the modern ones that are more cycle friendly as they have better sight lines/bigger windows for checking the bike - for this reason on my ride Birmingham to London I chose the White Hart in Aylesbury for breakfast.

https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/all- ... -aylesbury

over the far more attractive looking and historic The Bell.

No-one would say the White Hart was an attractive building, looks more like an office from outside, but has its own handy railings at the edge of the seating area. Had a large breakfast in there, several coffees to revive me after an interesting night, then a beer or maybe two for the onward road.

[Cunobelin]

Then to seemingly have a willingness to acquire produce from parts of the world with dubious practices. If and when his desired Brexit is complete I’d put money on he will be amongst the first to serve up chlorinated chicken from the USA and hormone treated beef from Australia. The price , I’ve heard, he does a steak for makes you wonder where it does come from.

I dont think the price of a steak there is through dubious sourcing. I had a steak plus pint for £11.00. Considering you can now buy a sizeable British steak in Aldi for £2.99 the economies of scale at Spoons will mean it's much less than that price. Also apparently the reason their beer is cheap is they buy up just about to go out of date kegs in bulk, knowing they have sufficient outlets to sell it quickly. It's clever buying and marketing that makes their prices cheap.

OMG company makes profit.....We have a number of chains around here, and all charge more for that £2.99 Aldi steak than Wetherspoons - I think I just ran out of pubs to drink in

[paddler]

that's quite a few awavey - am impressed

Feel free to add any others that come to mind.


The ones in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft do though have street Sheffield stands outside visible from the pub - I know as I've been. From memory neither are particularly nice pubs but that doesn't mean, as very often the case with spoons, the beer isn't excellent. Seem to vaguely recall drinking something very nice in the Yarmouth one - much appreciated as I'd ridden fully loaded non stop from south London.

They have opened a new one in Gorleston but haven't been.

The Beccles pub is very nice though and had local beer when I popped in for a swift half en route to Reedham Ferry. Agree not cycle friendly as such - seem to remember I fastened my bike to a bit of their street furniture then popped inside for the beer while I friendly local kept an eye on my bike. Then sat outside. One to visit without a bike I think. Thanks for the tip on Bury St Edmunds - one hell of a building - grade 1 listed.

edit - yes I also understand that the short-dated beer thing is urban myth/stuff put around by folk with an agenda

edit edit, may check out the Ipswich one on my pedal back - thanks also for the info on those other two Norwich ones - they sound promising - Queen of Iceni I know as above - modern pub (the cruel might say therefore lacking character) but from experience it is sometimes the modern ones that are more cycle friendly as they have better sight lines/bigger windows for checking the bike - for this reason on my ride Birmingham to London I chose the White Hart in Aylesbury for breakfast.

https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/all- ... -aylesbury

over the far more attractive looking and historic The Bell.

No-one would say the White Hart was an attractive building, looks more like an office from outside, but has its own handy railings at the edge of the seating area. Had a large breakfast in there, several coffees to revive me after an interesting night, then a beer or maybe two for the onward road.

Just to add The Whiffler on the Norwich Ring Road, north side. Had a quick half in there a few weeks back while we discussed a cycling day trip to the Peaks. Can't really say too much about it other than it was very busy ( a Friday evening) and the beer was ok. Just had a good look on Streetview and there was nothing to lock a bike to and no garden - just some picnic tables in the front car park. I've texted my friend who lives nearby so if he has anything to add I'll come back.

May not be an area anyone would cycle through though and not really worth a diversion for.

Dave

[Sweep]

The planned cycle camping foray around Norfolk/Suffolk starting from peterborough was postponed because of domestic demands so the train ticket London Peterborough was used for a return ride to London.

Popped in here from a large breakfast - Sanford House Huntingdon

https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/hotels/en ... huntingdon

My usual technique of getting to the pubs before 12 so that the breakfast can be used as a lunch/fuel for the rest of the day's cycling - I just grab a snack from supplies for the "breakfast".

No bike parking/racks as such that I spotted but the rear area, which you don't have to go to through the pub to get to, has plentiful railings and bikes fastened there can be clearly seen through the large glass windows if you sit in the right place. During nice weather as it was yesterday they open the fullsize windows to let the air in which is nice.

https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl= ... mrc&uact=8


Had a couple of pints of rather wonderful St Peters Porter. Plus 5 per cent, £2.05 a pint, cycled merrily on. I note that this pub opens at 7 (it is also a hotel) so they quite possibly do breakfasts from 7am.

Pub had a helpful notice of interesting beers coming up, though I wouldn't be around of course. Handy drinking water dispenser with glasses on the bar and a nice notice advising you to just ask behind the bar if you wanted drinking bottles filled.

[mattsccm]

Monmouth and Ross both have outside areas with back access and you can lock your bikes within a few feet of your table. Chepstow within site and as you can see above Abergavenny is friendly.

[simonhill]

It's quite funny to think that Wetherspoons are destroying some imaginary Norfolk pub and beer tradition.

When I joined CAMRA back in '73 or 4, Norfolk was officially known as 'a beer desert'. Watneys proudly produced their infamous keg beers from their Norwich brewery and that was about it apart from a few small inroads of draught beer from breweries like Adnams.

Woodfordes started brewing in 1981, which was the small beginning of a flowering of the desert. If a W'spoons had opened 30 or 40 years ago, the locals would probably had wondered why the beer didn't come out a Red Barrel.

[Sweep]

thanks simon for your educated perspective and nice post.

Clearly you understand beer and pubs.

My first encounter with Woodfordes was on a car touring trip to their home base, my second thanks to the good spoons more recently on a bike tour.

I also well remember how bad much beer and many pubs were in the 70s.

A real pity that so many pubs have closed and some fine interiors lost/"improved" but I don't consider this to be the fault of spoons - wider social things.

Hell, I remember in late 70s London Trumans pubs - basically sold Watneys fizz I wouldn't touch these days. Trumans bizzarely recently "relaunched" for the benefit of hipsters and when it appears in my local spoons I avoid it.

As for the Brexit thing, somewhere I shouldn't really go, with regard to spoons I often think thee is an awful circularity about some folks' unreasoned objection to them.

Confession - on my Peterborough to London ride I did also stop in the St Ives spoons - not so cycle friendly - rear yard but not accessible without going through the pub. Decent bike parking outside (not spoons provided) but not really visible from the pub. Wouldn't have great worries at all about locking a bike there but wouldn't want to leave a bike with luggage there.

Will return with more info on relevant spoons when have more time.

I do intend intend to make the Norfolk/Suffolk bike trip before the summer is out - will report back when I do and in at least one of the pubs raise a pint to you Simon.

[crazydave789]

Of course there are issues where most of the "British" products are simply packaged in Britain and passed off as British, but why are some campaigns acceptable, and others unacceptable

I see nothing wrong with promoting Good British produce for all the right reasons. Production values, food miles, supporting Britain.
In the case of Mr Martin his campaign is to shun EU produce on the grounds of a lie. Then to seemingly have a willingness to acquire produce from parts of the world with dubious practices. If and when his desired Brexit is complete I’d put money on he will be amongst the first to serve up chlorinated chicken from the USA and hormone treated beef from Australia. The price , I’ve heard, he does a steak for makes you wonder where it does come from.

I did a couple of weeks in chicken and pig factories when I was 19, I love the taste of chlorinated chicken as its far healthier than what they do with it now. it was not stopped for health reasons far from it - greenpeace and friends of the earth were trying to ban chlorine use in everything at the time including drinking water and swimming pools.

chlorination was just washing the chickens after processing so they travelled better for longer, companies were not changing the water often enough which was how salmonella made its way into the water and stayed there for the whole shift usually. modern chicken is just washed in water which is still not changed enough so we have health warnings and more food poisoning cases but the EU can't back down.

there is a massive grey market out there of ships full of stock sailing around looking for the best price. sometimes it's jeans or toothpaste, other times it's steak or chicken.

post Brexit we could get everything we needed from the ukraine. they'll never be allowed in the EU because it would bankrupt the CAP just on egg production alone.

[Cunobelin]

Of course there are issues where most of the "British" products are simply packaged in Britain and passed off as British, but why are some campaigns acceptable, and others unacceptable

I see nothing wrong with promoting Good British produce for all the right reasons. Production values, food miles, supporting Britain.
In the case of Mr Martin his campaign is to shun EU produce on the grounds of a lie. Then to seemingly have a willingness to acquire produce from parts of the world with dubious practices. If and when his desired Brexit is complete I’d put money on he will be amongst the first to serve up chlorinated chicken from the USA and hormone treated beef from Australia. The price , I’ve heard, he does a steak for makes you wonder where it does come from.

Except a lot of it isn't. You can fly, truck or ship in products from all over the world, and as long as they are put in a packet within the UK, it becomes "British", completely making a mockery of the system.

What I did find interesting recently was the great Steak Crisis where Wetherspoons found a problem with a supplier Russell Hulme and withdrew the products immediately. Yet it took most of the other chains being supplied several more days to react to the same information. Yet ony Wetherspoons received the press backlash

I do smile though at the accusations of hormone treated beef and chlorinated chicken, how long before someone claims the old propaganda statement that they are serving up children on the menu?

[Sweep]

excellent point about the food recall thing.

There is undoubtedly a lot of snobbery about spoons.

I well remember reading a report of an english defence league demo in central london.

Totally gratuitously the report said that a fair few of the demonstrators had met up in a spoons.

Twas the one at the top of whitehall I think. Have been in there myself a few times with a range of folk, none to the best of my knowledge fascists.

[Cunobelin]

You also have to love the bias in the Press

The Independent reports that Wetherspoon is facing a beer shortage during the World Cup

In reality it is a National shortage of CO2 that is affecting every single pub, brewery, importer in the Country.. but

[Cyril Haearn]

Spoons plans to drop "European" beer and offer instead products from English-speaking countries! (USA, Aus)
Mr M has some interesting political views apparently, would it be worth boycotting his places? Do his views win him approval and custom too?

Does Spoons have a semi-monopoly? Where is the biggest place without one?

[Sweep]

Not sure how you could suggest they have a monopoly brynn.

As regards the partial move to non EU sourcing I think that despite some exaggerated responses to that, it's mainly a business decision. Which is fair enough. I would expect them to still have foreign and EU beers in their beer festival.

[Cyril Haearn]

Not sure how you could suggest they have a monopoly brynn.

As regards the partial move to non EU sourcing I think that despite some exaggerated responses to that, it's mainly a business decision. Which is fair enough. I would expect them to still have foreign and EU beers in their beer festival.

Not a monopoly as 100% but a "dominant" position as biggest operator where they have power, could be from 30-40% of the market as the food store t***o

There surely are places where there is a spoons and not much else

Mind, not for me, gave up alcohol in 1990

Anybody have an opinion about the spoons head honcho?

[Cunobelin]

Spoons plans to drop "European" beer and offer instead products from English-speaking countries! (USA, Aus)
Mr M has some interesting political views apparently, would it be worth boycotting his places? Do his views win him approval and custom too?

Does Spoons have a semi-monopoly? Where is the biggest place without one?

The actual statement made clear that British beers would be a priority along with British wines, with "Some" products being sourced from teh US and Australia. Not as suggested here that they would be a main source. It was also pointed out that this was a policy under review, and that contracts with some European companies had more than 5 years so it was not the immediate ban being mis-reported by many

I would love to see the actual quote where Wetherspoons have stated "English speaking countries" - any evidence to back that statement?

It really can't be long before the propaganda staple that they have children on the menu, the anti-propaganda continues......