Cake, Cameras and Country Lanes: John and Anne Massey on Life in the Saddle

Between them, John and Anne Massey have led hundreds of rides, discovered some of the best cafes in Berkshire and Hampshire, and logged more country lanes than most OS maps. We sat down with the husband and wife to talk about the rides, the routes, the community and what fuels them.

For John, cycling has been a constant since childhood. He cycled to school, went on cycling holidays, and spent school breaks helping out in the workshop of his father's cycle shop. Family life took over for a while, as it does, but he found his way back to the saddle in the nineties, spending weekends building his knowledge of the area and riding the Three Counties annual charity ride. When he retired in 2012 the riding naturally became more frequent, and he's now out up to four times a week.

What keeps him coming back? "The fresh air, the countryside, observing the seasons, the social side of a group ride and generally keeping fit," he says. He's a keen amateur photographer too, always looking for a shot on solo rides – and, it goes without saying, the reward of coffee and cake at a good cafe.

Anne came to cycling much later, and by a different road entirely. A garden designer and landscaper for the later part of her career, she was fit but heading into semi-retirement, and found gyms utterly boring. So ten years ago she joined a Breeze group – British Cycling's network of women-only rides led by volunteers – and, in her words, "it was the making of me as a cyclist."

Her very first ride was eight very flat miles and she was exhausted, but the satisfaction of having done it stuck. John told her that if she could do 10 miles she could do 20, then 30, and he was right. She went on to qualify as a ride leader herself and has now led around 250 rides, accompanying more than 1,200 ladies along the way.

Like John, she rides with a camera – and now a drone – writing a blog after each ride as a keepsake of who was with her and where they went.

The community is clearly a huge part of it for both of them. Anne describes the Breeze rides as a perfect way to meet new people and form friendships – most riders are at a similar stage of life, many share other hobbies, and she's even been on holiday with ladies she met through cycling.

She also runs a Friday Club of seven ladies who came together after she put an advert on a local Facebook page seven years ago. "It's become one of my favourite things," she says.

John, meanwhile, is a member and ride leader at Wokingham Cycling Club, where he particularly enjoys showing members new routes and cafes they might not have found on their own. And the two of them still ride together – Sundays are for exploring new territory, transporting the bikes to start points a little further afield, and Mondays are spent with a small group of friends.

Ask them what a perfect cycling day looks like and the answers overlap beautifully. Both are avid weather watchers, always checking the week ahead. Assuming the forecast behaves, Anne's ideal day involves traffic-free lanes, beautiful countryside, plenty of photo opportunities and a good coffee spot.

John wants to be somewhere he hasn't been before, ideally with a bit of local history along the way, something worth photographing, and the prospect of a great cafe at the heart of it. "A good day on the bike has all of those things," he says.

Route planning, for John, is genuinely part of the enjoyment – he's always been drawn to maps. Anne has lived in this part of the country for 40 years and had no idea how many hidden lanes were on her doorstep until she started cycling.

Her routes stick primarily to quiet lanes, doglegging across main roads to connect to more, and her stopping points go well beyond cafes: a church full of daffodils in spring, a bluebell wood in April, fabulous autumn colour, a ford or a river crossing. A couple of times a year she arranges visits to private gardens that open for charity, with tea and cake laid on. Those, she says, are always a highlight.

When it comes to choosing where to refuel, the pair have it down to a science. It needs to be big enough for a group of six to eight to sit together, which rules out a lot of places. A countryside location beats a town centre, bike racks matter, the coffee drinkers want a proper choice, there should be a fair selection of something sweet or savoury, and service needs to be reasonably prompt – nobody wants to be off the bike for too long.

John sums it up simply: "Good cake, great coffee, a warm welcome and prompt service. It's not complicated but when it's right, you know."

Honesty entered the picture around 2016, when John found the cafe at Inkpen purely by chance on an exploratory ride to West Berkshire. He went in, liked it, and later discovered it was part of a wider group. Once he'd looked up the other locations, he and Anne started planning rides that took in whichever Honesty cafe suited the route – particularly where good cafe options were hard to come by.

"It's become a reliable part of our planning," he says.

So what would they say to a cyclist discovering Honesty for the first time mid-ride?

"Go in! Great cake!" says Anne. "And the guarantee that if you have the same cake at another Honesty, it will be just as good."

As for their orders: Anne is a decaf tea drinker – a bit boring, she admits, but at least she can rely on it being the same wherever she is – paired with the Tunisian Orange cake, which she finds less rich on a ride than carrot or chocolate.

John goes for a skinny flat white "and then not so skinny chocolate or carrot cake. It seems only fair to balance things out."

And their message to other cyclists, whatever their level?

Anne says never to think you can't do hills – she started very late, with those eight flat miles, and now gets huge satisfaction watching her regular riders progress in both miles and elevation. Some can easily beat her to the top of a hill these days, but it was never about speed. She probably stopped to take a photo halfway up anyway.

John's advice is simpler still: look around, take in the scenery, take a few photos. "It's about the journey, not just getting from A to B. The miles take care of themselves when you're enjoying what's around you."

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Helpful references

Breeze is British Cycling's free network of women's cycling groups with volunteer-led rides across the UK. Find out more at britishcycling.org.uk/breeze.

Wokingham Cycling Club organises road, gravel and MTB rides throughout the year. Find out more at wokinghamcycling.club.

Honesty is a family of independently owned coffee shops, a bakery, two pubs and a cookery school across Berkshire and Hampshire – and soon to be London – founded in 2014 on the belief that food should be made with care, not chemicals. Find your nearest at honestygroup.co.uk/pages/locations.