What a contrast to last Sunday! Today was clear and sunny, with a biting easterly wind. A good day for Carol to try out her new electrically heated insoles, especially when having to stand around at the start while a flat tyre was sorted out.
Twelve of us met at Hertford and followed a fairly direct route through Bengeo to Sacombe Park, where we spotted some guinea fowl strutting around.
We had given Judy a 15 minute head start, hoping to catch her on the road, but found her waiting outside the Buntingford Coffee Shop for them to open at 11.George joined us here and the cafe coped well with the sudden influx of 13 cyclists, despite us causing some confusion by grabbing cups of tea destined for someone else. From here we headed across via Wyddial to Anstey, where we encountered some ice, then we followed quiet, open lanes down through the Hormeads and Furneaux Pelham to Puckeridge.
The Crown & Falcon in Puckeridge is an historic pub dating from about 1530 and is said to have been visited by Pepys in 1662, where he bought a new pair of shoes on his way to Cambridge. As we already had shoes, they offered us a wide range of bar food and real ales. We found Richard inside, making a total of 14 riders for the day.
Reluctantly, we headed back out into the cold with half the group riding back home via Dane End and the other half returning to Hertford, to complete a 40 mile circuit on which we had seen very few cars that day.
Photos by Graham
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