Well it should have been to Chalfont St Peter, but events took over somehow!
On a bright April morning, warm enough for bare legs, I threaded my way through the gathering of about 50 Verulam riders who seemed to have established the forecourt of the Alban Arena as their meeting point, to the Waterend Barn. Of course, this was the first time this year we were using our new departure time of 9 a.m. as agreed at our recent AGM, whereas previously we had met half an hour later. Avoiding the junk market in St Peters Street, we headed out through Bedmond, Abbots Langley, Hunton Bridge and Chandlers Cross to go down and up the steep dip to the cross-roads at Chorleywood. Here, instead of going straight on as usual, we turned right along the A404 main road for half a mile before turning left onto the common to go down under the railway bridge and past the shops and up the hill towards our destination of The Madeira cafe in Chalfont St Peter where Philip was looking forward to an encounter with a Portuguese tart. But as I slipped onto my small chain-ring to ascend the hill, my chain came off and jammed. I decided that the best way to resolve the situation was to break the chain at the speed link, extract, re-thread and rejoin it. Although I had my chain pliers with me, and so easily break the chain, it took me a while to do the rest (mainly caused by me temporarily losing one of the rollers of the severed links), by which time the others had turned back to look for me.
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Chain pliers
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Deciding we had lost too much time, we had our elevenses at Rootz café on the nearby parade which appeared very busy but served us quickly.
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| Rootz café was next door! |
After consuming some of their very good coffee, we returned via the standard route through Flaunden, Rucklers Lane and Bunkers Lane and got back to St Albans at about 12.30 after only 32 miles. Carol took the photo below to capture the yellow rapeseed and lilac bluebells against a rather grey sky.
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| Rucklers lane |
Steve B
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