22 Dec 2019: St Albans to Chesham

The cold dark damp morning on the winter solstice brought out only five riders into the Waterend Barn, including Talia from Barnet Cyclists and Philip from our midweek riders. Observing yet another Christmas Market on St Peter’s Street we set off towards Redbourn, noticing the volume of traffic, which was probably due to the later-than-usual start time. We knew that floods might be a problem due to the recent heavy rainfall and we encountered the first on the Redbourn Road, Turning off along Hogg End Lane as the sun came out, we paused near its end to take a picture of a fly-tip, and cut through Cupid Green and Piccott’s End. and then along the B440 Leighton Buzzard Road and encountering a flood extending over half the left side of the carriageway at the appropriately named Water End. We then turned off for Berkhamsted and crossed the old A41 at the traffic lights in the town centre. Enduring the subsequent long climb out of the town we turned north west to visit the entrance to Champneys before heading south to follow a continuous 5-mile descent into Chesham unfortunately directly into the midday sun. While Philip popped into Sainsbury’s to buy a sandwich, we chatted to a venerable cyclist who was fascinated by his parked chrome-plated 1970’s bike. Then, all suitably equipped with rations, we headed to the  south end of Chesham and the Pheasant pub, which encourages patrons to bring their own picnics.

Pheasant decorations

A by-product of this policy is that the inside of the pub is immaculate. We deposited ourselves by a large round table and consumed our lunches with drinks from the bar before departing at 1.30.  We then took the usual route back via Flaunden where the green-dragon figure-head no longer peers over the hedge at the top of the hill as the pub is currently closed (but rumoured to be re-opening after some building works). We then returned via Ruckler’s Lane and the Hemel Hempstead Road arriving home well before 3pm in broad daylight.

Steve B