19 Dec 2021: St Albans to Amersham

It was a dismal cold, damp and misty morning for the final ride of 2021, which maybe was the reason only Gary joined Steve and me in the Waterend Barn St Albans. We passed a snake of over 50 people queueing for their booster jabs at the Council offices and then cycled through the marketplace, past the stalls selling Christmas junk destined for landfill in two week's time, and headed out towards Bedmond before using Hyde Lane to drop into the Gade Valley, then Rucklers Lane to climb up the other side. We were all grateful for the hills as we hoped the effort expended might force some blood to circulate to our extremities. I took the photo as we passed the Green Dragon looking over the hedge in Flaunden, but the photo doesn't show how murky and misty it really was.

Passing the Green Dragon

Instead of just going through Latimer we turned up another hill accessed from Hockley Bottom expecting it to be a quiet country lane, but every man and his dog seemed to be coming down it. We then cut across to Blackwell Hall Lane to descend to the Chess valley. Another long climb took us up to Chesham Bois before we reached the always reliable Masterchef café. Bacon sandwiches and a liver dinner were consumed before we turned back via Chenies, Belsize and Chipperfield. Unfortunately Steve had a rear-wheel puncture near Belsize and we all got very cold while he mended it. This took longer than normal because the tyre was difficult to remove as the cold had made the rubber less pliable. We made it back to St Albans just before 2pm and felt quite smug that we'd managed to get in a bit of healthy exercise before the weather was forecast to get even colder and wetter in the week before Christmas.

So Merry Christmas everyone and lets hope to see more people out in 2022!

Carol - map below