30 June 2019: Panshanger to Royston

Well, Saturday had been hottest day of the year, at 34C a bit too hot for cycling. But a radical cooling change was forecast for Sunday. So in anticipation there were 8 of us at the start at Panshanger golf centre in Welwyn Garden City. First stop was to be at another golf club at Ash valley near Much Hadham. For a change I took the direct B1000 road straight into Hertford as, being early there wasn’t much traffic. Reaching Hertford very quickly we climbed up through the back streets of Bengeo with its smart “gentrified” housing. Then out along a country lane towards Sacombe Park, the grounds of Sacombe House, currently encased in scaffolding and probably being turned into upmarket apartments. Still the parkland setting is very pretty.

Sacombe Green

From there across both the old and new A10 roads and down to Barwick ford. Here Ronny displayed virtuoso riding skills by cycling through the ford without falling in, whilst the rest of us wimps went over the footbridge. Onwards took us through Much Hadham and then at about 18 miles we reached the Ash Valley golf club. This is in a very nice setting and has a nice low key ambience plus excellent mid morning grub.

Ronny

After this three riders turned back for home, while the rest of us headed north. By now we were on little lanes in mostly very open, quiet countryside, the temperature was ideal and we meandered on through Anstey to Barkway. Ronny now had to turn back, so just four of us did the last few undulating miles into Royston. Here we lunched at “The Manor House” a fine imposing Georgian building, now a pub run by Wetherspoons. This might seem a little ignominious for such a building, but at least it means it is restored and maintained and the public (us) can see inside. Plus it does good food at a very good price.

So, having fed and rested, we left Royston going west on the old main road a short way until we turned south across Therfield Heath.  This was easier said than done, as in reality it was a long hard slog of a climb against a headwind all the way to Therfield. Onwards through Sandon and Roe Green it all seems quite a remote part of the county. Then we were in Rushden and by now we had been cycling for about an hour into headwinds. So the original plan to press on to Old Stevenage for a tea stop was abandoned, because the opportunity to stop here and enjoy having tea at “The Mill” nursery was too much. Indeed it was so pleasant sitting and having tea at tables with tablecloths and proper teapots that we found it difficult to motivate ourselves to start cycling again.

However needs must and away we went cycling southwards. Soon we were at Walkern followed by Tewin and back to Panshanger where we had started. In all we had done about 60 miles and the weather had been kind, mostly sunny but not too hot with just a little too much wind in the afternoon.

peteR 30/06/2019

23 June 2019: St Albans to Hedgerley

Our planned route on Sunday started with a detour as the setting up of the St Albans Festival was in a full swing. Nevertheless we found our way out of the city and onto small country lanes to Bedmond. My three fellow riders were surprised by the nice areas in Abbots Langley around Hazelwood Lane, a way we seldom take. We continued our way to Loudwater.

In my planning I didn't take much care of the hilliness at this place and so we took the scenic route along Chorleywood common and the woods up to Berry Lane Estates, adding 50 meters of elevation to the tour. As our stomachs became already noisy, we had our breakfast stop a bit earlier than planned at the cafe in Maple Cross.

The hill to Horn Hill helped us to get warm again after breakfast, but then we also enjoyed the ride down into Gerrards Cross. Our route continued to be hilly through Fulmer and Stoke Poges, until we finally headed to our lunch stop in Hedgerley. We ordered our sandwiches just in time before the White Horse became busy.

The way after lunch continued on quiet lanes. We were surprised to see how much grass and other plants were growing in potholes and cracks of the road parallel to the M40. The blackberry bushes were in full blossom, which was nice to see and added some colour. The sky remained cloudy for the whole day, but it was dry and the temperature warm. We then crossed Beaconsfield, which was more busy, but soon we found ourselves back on quiet and empty lanes. The valleys of the rivers Misbourne and Chess added some more elevation to the tour, so we all looked forward to the coffee stop in Chipperfield.

There we got entertained by the youth on their bicycles (back-wheel riding). Eventually we had to go back on our bikes and took the direct way back to St Albans. When we arrived there, I had 86 km on the bicycle computer.

Ronny (PS see below the map for an update on the Welwyn Hatfield fitness festival event)




On Saturday 22nd Rona, Jean and Neil represented the club at the WelHat Health Festival where they had a stall.

Smiles all round!

16 June 2019: Hatfield to Bishops Stortford

It started raining as nine gathered under the bike shed outside Asda in Hatfield, but in the warm weather it didn't last long and jackets were soon removed. The usual picturesque route south went around the back of the M and S depot and through the industrial estate in Welham Green before branching east through the village of Little Berkhamsted and behind the Paradise Park zoo to Hoddesdon. We arrived at the River Palace café to find it heaving with dads being treated to a Fathers' Day breakfast. A quick re-plan took us backtracking to a different café on Rye Road called Anatolia's. The service could not have been more different to the previous week as all the food was produced in double-quick time at a very economical price. The café is like a Dr Who Tardis as it is huge inside, hiding behind a modest exterior.

After another change of plan, we cycled pasted the Rye House gatehouse where the Rye House plot took place.

Gatehouse

We decided the original planned lunch pub would not be a good idea as sitting in the garden in the rain didn't sound appealing so we headed to the usually ever dependable JD Wetherspoon outlet in Bishops Stortford pausing for a photoshoot near Perry Green by the Henry Moore statue.

Perry Green

Carol got a puncture just afterwards so the rest of the group went ahead to the pub. The road seemed exceptionally busy on the way into Stortford and it turned out the A120 trunk road was closed between Little Hadham and Stortford as the works have started on the Little Hadham bypass. Unfortunately we were cycling on the official diversion. 

As Carol and Steve approached the JDW pub the others came out after having been told of an hour wait for food, so we decamped to the reliable Bridge Café for lunch instead. 

We left Stortford via quiet lanes north, then west before crossing the now-opened  A120 and headed west through Wellpond Green where we saw the illegal camp set up by members of the Travelling Community. This hit the national news recently as they bought a field and have built a caravan site illegally.

Get the map out

Ronny's photo showed there was some fine weather around and eventually we had a coffee stop in Hertford before getting back to Hatfield in the late afternoon.

I forgot to switch my tracker on until we were on the edge of Hatfield so the map looks a bit strange. 

Lesson learned - next year set up a picnic ride on any special occasion day if we want to avoid any overloaded pubs!

About 60 miles and unusually no planned stops were used!

Carol

15 June 2019: Hatfield to Potters Bar

We had a good turn out this week, welcoming a rider from the 40+ and seeing the return of a new rider from the last ride. It was one of those what-the-hell-should-you-wear kind of mornings, quite warm with drizzle in the air. The route to Potters Bar was a meandering affair as usual. We headed out via the university and took the road from Colney Heath to Water End. After we’d gone through there I decided to take the cycle path beside Swanland Road, which turned out to be an arm scratchingly, leg stingy, branch in the face kind of experience. Plants just love to grow out of control!

Anyway, after we’d put our machetes away, the delights of South Mimms were awaiting us. Now I don’t go through here often and when we got to the main junction in the village I remembered why. There’s a small bit of one way road here that I always forget about, so we all cycled along the road the wrong way, motor vehicle drivers would’ve had a field day if they’d seen us.

After we’d passed the Old Guinea pub we stayed on Cross Oaks Lane and took the farm road over to Well End towards the Mop & Brooms pub on Rowley Lane, for a nice change. Then it was over the A1, along Trotters Bottom and up Dancers Hill into Potters Bar. The hill that nearly did everyone in was Mutton Lane, which leads up to the top part of the town and our café.

Hiding inside the café were Jon and Judy, who we haven’t seen for a while and both looked happy and well. It was nice to catch up with them. Upon exiting the café I spied lots of traffic and some furious honking of horns. This was because the traffic had nearly come to a standstill, so we chose to break the rules again taking carefully to the pavement. It really was the most sensible idea as we came across the cause of the problem, an artic lorry delivering to the Co-op mixed with the road being ripped up for re-surfacing.

Once we were through the traffic we headed for Northaw and took the back road to Brookmans Park. Here we chose to use Upland Road and headed into Welham Green via Bell Lane, a great route as it’s almost all down hill . After a little jiggery pokery we were back in Hatfield with happy faces all around, there was a request for weekly rides but for this to happen we will need more leaders.

Our next ride is from a new starting place, Wheathampstead (public car park behind the Bull pub).

Neil 15/06/2019

09 June 2019: St Albans to Wrest Park, Silsoe

As it was the start of Bike Week, we'd listed this event on the LetsRide website, so we welcomed some newcomers, which simultaneously fixed the usual gender imbalance, and started off from St Albans with 12 riders. Avoiding the route of the St Albans half marathon, we cycled towards Redbourn before skirting Maylands industrial area in Hemel to gently climb to Gaddesden Row. In Studham we missed the planned turn as Carol was chatting so zig-zagged back to join the gradual ascent towards Whipsnade then cut across to Kensworth and then used the very quiet Isle of Wight Lane to the top of the Dunstable Downs. A fast descent brought us to the newly found Downs café where it unfortunately took ages for the food to arrive.

Neil joined us at the elevenses stop, so 13 carried on to Silsoe using the back streets of Dunstable before joining NCR 6 for a couple of miles through a surprisingly green area of Dunstable and Houghton Regis.

Posh picnic area at Wrest Park café

It was a short distance along the road towards the new M1junction, then we rode on the cycle path alongside the new-junction access roads bringing us us back onto the lanes near Sundon. Largely quiet roads took us past Flitton church where the De Grey mausoleum is situated. (The De Greys were the family who lived at Wrest Park). We split into picnickers and pub-goers in Silsoe. The picnic area of Wrest Park was generously equipped with proper tables and chairs where we enjoyed the sunshine. The pub-goers were not so lucky as the pub didn't serve sandwiches. Two bad choices on one day is not a good track record. We didn't get to see Wrest Park House, so I've included a picture below to show its architecture. It also is run by English Heritage and was a run-down agricultural college until 2006.

Wrest Park

Ronny had gone straight back from Silsoe, so after lunch 12 of us made our way to Emily's at Whitwell for an afternoon stop where we encountered a huge queue of other cyclists. However we still got back to St Albans at 5pm, just as the rain began, after almost exactly 60 miles. On reflection, another trip out this way should use the Gary Cooper (named after the 1950's film star who lived in Dunstable as a child), just off the cycle route in the park in Dunstable, as a morning-coffee stop.

Carol

02 June 2019: Wheathampstead to Great Barford

Our riders assembled at Wheathampstead on a fine but breezy morning for our trip out into Bedfordshire. Setting off through Kimpton we were soon zigzagging through the network of quiet lanes to the north, to drop down to Lilley Bottom.

Route checking

We headed towards Lilley village. It seemed to me a route too much used recently, so for a change we climbed up to Great Offley and then down onto the main Hitchin road for a bit where Herts CC had done us a favour and coned-off the onside lane to allow us to cycle safely along the dual carriageway. We turned left along Wibbly Wobbly Lane (boringly now re-named Carters Lane).

A505 Luton to Hitchin road

Though actually the surface was quite good and there weren't too many bends, so maybe fair enough. A nice long straight road took us to Pirton and then on to refreshments at Lower Stondon golf club. Several of our party turned back for home at this point, but the rest struck out into deepest Bedfordshire. We passed the gigantic airship hangars at Cardington (built 1915) and used as film studios more recently.  A now flat route soon brought us to the Great Ouse and the picturesque bridge at Great Barford. We sat by the river to eat our sandwiches (drinks from the pub) and admired the river traffic. We had turned in the best part of 40 miles and the return trip was going to be into a brisk head wind. Some people now, realising that Bedford train station was only 7 miles away, suddenly began to remember urgent evening appointments or were surprisingly troubled by bad legs and said they were going to get the train back to St Albans.

So, it was only a sadly depleted rump who set out on the bracing return ride. But ride it we did and it involved climbing the hill at Hexton and tea at Emily's. Top marks to Sue who had to get further still and into north London.

Route was about 70 miles back to Wheathampstead

Richard

01 June 2019: St Albans to Shenley

We had another good turnout today. Two new riders and it was great to see a face that hadn’t been out for a while. After my normal preamble I made sure that everyone had water; the day was going to get hot and water was a must for everyone.

Our route took us down the Alban Way, then through the estates over to the Watford road, but instead of following this we took a trip around Greenwood Park, with a murmur of surprise from one of our riders as they didn’t know it was even there. I love it when that happens, people discovering stuff is the best.

We went over the footbridge and into How Wood, then meandered around the streets which eventually led us to Bricket Wood and Drop Lane. It’s funny how you can do a route and there is nearly always someone new to the roads. This time it was a rider from Barnet who was familiar with Smug Oak Lane but had never been down the next lane on and he was pleasantly surprised with it.

Making good work of Hanger Lane we were soon onto the climb that is Black Lion Hill. About a quarter of the way up we headed off to the less steep side of the hill. This hill, although not a challenge to most seasoned cyclists, can be a real pain for those that just aren’t used to hill climbing. The reward for this effort is a relaxing cuppa at the Shenley tea rooms. 

This place was as busy as ever, there was also another group of cyclists there (a Watford group), we pushed up tables and all enjoyed the sunshine, then at some point a tandem arrived.

After the break we headed onto the lovely lanes that are around Rectory Lane and by this time the sun had well and truly started to shine, so we did a couple of quick roads into London Colney, then we hopped over the BIG massive bridge and took our lives in our hands as we navigated the junction on the BIG roundabout to safely make it onto Nightingale Lane (once a main road).

It wasn’t long ‘till we were back at the start before the sun did its stuff later in the day.

A great ride out. Our next ride is exploring the lanes that populate the Ridgeway as we head off to Potters Bar.

Neil 01/06/2019