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My knees trembled watching this...... and not in a good way The Broomway


yen_powell

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Riding the Broomway Byway.

Frankly this video filled me with terror. I've ridden on Foulness island which connects at one end and you wouldn't get me anywhere near the sea parts of the byway. Worth watching the whole thing as they get a bit stuck near the end. These bloke are very brave/silly.

For the foreigners and non locals, the Broomway is a vehicular right of way that runs in the sea (some people think it is of Roman origin). It used to be marked by vertical stakes or brooms. It also used to be the only way onto Foulness island until the British Army built a bridge. Lots of people died walking home from the pub either getting stuck, lost or caught by the tide. Foulness is now an artillery testing ground, they fire out to sea, so apart from the danger of getting stuck in the sands, there could be unexploded munitions out there. I saw a large amount of dredged bombs, missiles, shells, rockety type things where the track joins Foulness, they were all chained to stop them getting washed out again. I was told that a few Bedford lorries have been lost over the years there before the bridge got finished.

People live on Foulness to farm it, but to get on there as Joe Public we had to make an appointment and bring ID and passports to get past the army and civilian guards. The people in the video are entering the track from the open end.

 

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Looking at the maps I screen shot, they seem a lot further out than that shows the path to be. Those squares on the map are 1000 metres wide so they should be about 300m from the shore. At times I can't even see the shoreline and that is from the bikers head height isn't it. That's the 100 yard dash at school three times, not that far.

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Nice one @yen_powell  I can remember the TRF used to ride that back in the day, much easier to follow nowadays with GPS.  I know all about the ordnance out there as I used to deliver a lot of it to Shoeburyness. 

Feck doing it on that XT600 though, that's a heavy bike for that sort of thing.  I've ridden a seashore byway like that at Askham in Cumbria .

 

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4386880

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