06 Mar 2011: Hertford to Wareside

Seven of us assembled by the Stag (Hart?) monument in Hertford on a very chilly March morning.  We set off and almost immediately climbed up Port Hill to Bengeo where we took the left fork through Stonyhills. As we had bikes with sturdy tyres I decided to take the route through Sacombe Park to Sacombe Green and go past one of our other elevenses haunts at Whitehill Golf club. We dropped down to the Great Munden road and followed this through to Great Munden and Nasty.  On the way there the Welwyn Wheelers passed us, one of whom I thought was Alan Wratten from Stevenage (he was riding a metallic dark blue Roberts). I subsequently chased after this group to see whether it was in fact Alan only to find it was somebody completely different!

After waiting for the rest of my group to catch up we carried on through Nasty, Westmill, Aspenden and reached Buntingford where we turned right onto the B road to Hare Street for our elevenses break at the Tortoise tea rooms.  After finishing and paying, we all posed for the obligatory group photo outside the venue only to find, as I pressed the button to take the picture that my camera's battery had gone flat. Richard duly stepped into the breach, whipped out his camera and did his best David Bailey impression!

Steve, Bill, Stuart, Neil, William & Tracey at the Tortoise Tearooms

Seven of us became six as newish rider William decided to make his own way back. We carried on through to Furneaux Pelham, Gravesend and then down to the traffic lights on the A120 at Little Hadham. The wait here wasn't too long and we were soon on our way to Much Hadham.  Through here and onto Widford where we stopped to regroup, Bill decided to show us his trick of holding onto a hedge whilst stationary and clipped into the pedals. Unfortunately, the part of the hedge he was holding onto broke off leaving Bill to do a spectacular roll across the road. Fortunately, there was no traffic coming along!

view map full screen

From here, it was only a short hop to lunch at The Chequers, Wareside where we had the back room almost to ourselves. Neil and I had the sausage baguette, which the menu boasted had "a trio of sausages". Obviously, this means something else in these parts as when it arrived we had four sausages each although one of mine did try to escape!  We left lunch and took the back lane down to Ware and then took the towpath to Hertford and returned to the Stag having covered 35 miles.

Stuart
6 March 2011