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