9 Dec 2018: St Albans to Caddington

As you can see from the picture below it turned out to be a bright sunny morning for December when six people gathered for the first later start at the Waterend Barn pub in St Albans. Great value for £1.25 for a bottomless mug of coffee. Steve H lead the ride out via the Gorhambury private road where we paused by the beautiful ruins. I tried for a group photoshoot but our riders are not very good riding in a tight peloton so as I only got one photo without truncated cyclists I selected the one of my husband.

Gorhambury in the sunshine

The road/track out of the estate up the hill was remarkably dry considering how much rain we have had recently. We skirted the edge of Hemel Hempstead then headed up Gaddesden Row and through Studham towards Kensworth. We were running a bit short of time on this hilly route so sped downhill to Markyate before climbing up to Caddington where we had a warm welcome and a table reserved. The pub did a good job of getting our pre-ordered sandwiches and jacket potatoes out even though they had two very large parties in for lunch. Must use this pub again on a winter short ride. After lunch we opted for the quickest and flattest route home via the back of Harpenden to get back to the St Albans area by 3pm. A welcome today to two new riders to the Sunday group who I hope we will see again.

We covered about 34 miles for the round trip as the map below shows.

Carol