29 Jul 2012: St Albans to Farnham Royal

Eight of us met at the war memorial in St Albans and the morning was bright and sunny but a little windy.  We had all heard the weather report and some of us felt a little over dressed.

Broken gear hanger on a new Raleigh

A wealth of expertise

Stranded cyclist

Bunting in Chalfont

We made a brisk start of things and headed off for Kings Langley.  The roads were peaceful and the sun was actually rather hot, but the breeze cooled us down.  First stop was Chalfont St Giles and on our way there we came across a hapless cyclist whose rear mech had sheared off.  Everyone stopped to help and Carol mentioned that there was a wealth of experience in the group.  Well we all looked at the problem and made the statutory muttering sounds, but came to the resounding conclusion that we could do nothing to help.  We bid the poor chap adieu and set off for tea.

Tea was a welcome break, and Chalfont was decked out in splendid bunting, the owner of the café wanted pic of us for their web site, so we obliged.

Soon we were making our way to Cookham; the weather couldn’t decide what it wanted to be so it settled on being all four in a twenty minute rotation.  Now the weather report had mentioned heavy showers; it hadn’t mentioned driving rain, thunder and lightning along with the hail stones.  This little treat had us all scurrying for cover.

Torrential rain

Not much shelter

But when the storm was over and as we set off, Bill heard the roar of engines and spied some classic cars in a field just over from us, so being a nosey bunch we decided to investigate.  The MG car club were holding a private meet.  These cars were lovely and very well looked after.  We spoke to the organiser and he let us have a wander around, which was really decent of him.

MG Car Club

MG racing car

MG sports car

What with the stops and the weather we decided that Cookham was a little too far.  Lunch was going to be closer - Farnham Royal to be exact.  Now I wish I could remember the name of the pub we visited because they were superb.  The rain lashed down and we were able to have our sandwiches inside.  They didn’t do food and really had no problem with us eating our own.  A rather nice place.

After watching the lashing rain and the F1 we made our way home, not the longest of rides but it was fun and held some great surprises.