26 Feb 2017: Wheathampstead to Benington

Three Houses Lane

Today’s ride was a bit different in several ways.  

As we were heading north, our start was in Wheathampstead making the ride shorter for most of the seven of us. 

But our esteemed leader Carol was absent, and in true leadership style had sought to delegate the task via email.  

Both Steve C and Jon had taken up the challenge, but as Steve had stayed up into the small hours loading a route onto his Garmin it was only fair to let him lead it. Fortunately the diminishing size of the reflection of followers in his rear-view mirror served to moderate his speed nicely.

Dimples Cafe

With a following wind, we soon reached Dimples Café located at a small par-3 golf course buried in the suburbs of Letchworth.  They provided excellent coffee and beans on toast in friendly style.

Adrian joined us, and answered the question of why the previous name of the café, shown on a painted-over sign, was ‘The Niblick’.  This showed an impressive knowledge of obscure golfing terms, considering he hated the game. 

Chalk Hill

Steve took the reins again to lead us out of Letchworth and up the steep Chalk Hills climb south of Baldock, where the enjoyment of the extensive views was marred only by the realisation that it was blowing a gale up there.  This was mostly behind us still, so again we reached our lunch spot early.  

Just as well as it was snowdrop weekend in Benington, and we were glad Carol had reserved a table for us in the village pub.  

We hadn’t been to this pub for years, but it was now in new hands and service was really excellent. 

Snowdrops at Benington

As usual after lunch, we soon found our group dividing up as we headed for home. Those going south had quite a battle against the strengthening wind. 

Jon 25/02/2017