After a week of nice warm sunny weather, winter returned with a bang on Sunday. So having five of us turn up at the start in Wheathampstead wasn’t too bad. Also it was nice to have Neil join us for his first Sunday ride for some time following an accident last year.
Our first stop was to be Dimples cafe set in a mini golf course in a Letchworth suburb. A reasonable distance so a fairly direct route was taken. Up the valley of the Mimram river to Kimpton Mill, then more back lanes skirting St Pauls Warden, avoiding Preston Hill to get to St. Ippollitts (lovely name), followed by Great Wymondley into Willian. This latter is now virtually a suburb of Letchworth and here we went on an off road cycle path into the pleasant suburban streets in the south of Letchworth, where, with a bit of luck I actually located the cafe. After coffee and sustenance it was time to move on and Neil went back, as he didn’t want to over-do things.
Now the four of us were off to Biggleswade for lunch. The problem with getting there is that if you are in a car you can go straight up the A1. But on a bicycle you have to loop out miles to the east or west. We decided on east, but first had to get out of Letchworth. I amazed myself by managing to navigate across the town and out through Norton on the north side of town without getting lost. Then east into the wide open spaces leading to Ashwell. This involved a steady climb up into an annoying and cold headwind. Just before Ashwell we turned west towards Hinxworth and, now we had the wind behind us, the cycling seemed amazingly fast and easy. After a few more easy miles and we were in Biggleswade. Finding the pub, “The Crown” was relatively easy and being a Wetherspoons, the food was quick, fast and cheap.
Coming back from Biggleswade we came down to the west of the A1 through Arlesey, this route is a bit boring but has the virtue of being flat. Then on and through Hitchin to the cyclist friendly haunt of “Emily’s Tearoom” in Whitwell. On from here we dispersed. When I got back to the start I made it about 55 miles in total but some of the others would have had quite a few more miles to do to get to their homes.
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