Who ate all the pies?
The postponed CC Sunny Hertfordshire ride has finally taken place!
I left home by car at 7:45am to head towards Hertford, somewhere I’ve never previously visited, which involved basically cycling to Stansted Airport and overshooting a bit.
Steve was waiting at the railway station, along with BleakAndDivine who had also come by car. We were directed to a convenient parking location which also had the benefit of a loo (and I was reminded once again of the inconvenience of wearing bib tights for this sort of procedure). BleakAndDivine reported that he’d passed Aperitif, Gezza and Davywalnuts on his way to Hertford so we knew they were on the road!
When we had unpacked the bikes and returned to the station where Steve was still waiting, SigSilverprinter had arrived. It was apparent that she and I shop at the same designer outlets – we had matching Aldi jackets and Aldi socks. I swapped my jacket for a high-vis one for the ride but the socks remained the same!
We then cycled to Hertford North station where we were picking up some more people. No-one by train, as it happened, but Steve’s friend Trevor was there and after a few minutes Aperitif, Gezza and Davywalnuts arrived. Gezza promptly turned round and went home again – obviously didn’t like the look of us! Or perhaps it was something to do with a football match…
My initial 'hello' to Aperitif may have startled him as I asked to squeeze his bicep. He acquiesced, however, so I had the thrill of touching a famous burly lycra-clad athlete. See:
http://www.cyclechat.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=609525&postcount=44
We lost Davy for about half an hour as he trotted off to the loo (and possibly had a burger and chips, or chatted up some random station attendant, or something?) and then once he returned a couple of other chaps decided to use the loos too. Eventually we set off! With Steve leading from the front… mostly:
We were very quickly out into countryside and it turned out to be a beautiful day – blue skies, fluffy clouds, that kind of thing. It was a surprisingly hilly ride (at least, it surprised me!) but the pace was manageable and I’m used to my position trundling along at the back up hills.
And a couple of seconds later, once I’ve been overtaken again!...
The roads were generally fairly quiet, if rather potholey in places. And hilly.
And I mean hilly. Although I think my Garmin GPS may have been overreading a fraction, at one point it told me I was going up a 63% slope. The weird thing is that Bleakanddivine’s GPS had us doing about 20%. Mine sounds more impressive, however!
We stopped for breathers now and again and to let me catch up but the group stayed together reasonably well – perhaps only having 7 people helped (an eighth joined us later).
Immediately after this stop (to admire the windmill) Davywalnuts picked up a puncture. Steve and I were ahead so we carried on down the hill whilst the rest stayed to help Davy. This was useful as I had been worrying how to share my four squares of chocolate amongst seven people; as it was just Steve and I waiting at the bottom of the hill I was able to give him one square and eat the other three myself. Result!
Davy clearly has real skills in inner tube purchasing as he managed to buy a pre-punctured spare tube. The repairers used three different bicycle pumps on the tube before realising the problem. Fortunately a different spare tube fixed the problem and the rest of the group eventually appeared at the bottom of the hill.
Eventually it was time for the lunch stop at a change of venue so that TheDoctor could join us there. We arrived and it was clear TheDoctor had already arrived on his Cool Bike:
So we tied up all our bikes and went in for some lunch.
The pub was rather posher than we were expecting. The menu had lots of French-sounding meals, lots of duck, that sort of thing. No burger and chips in evidence. We had cups of tea and beers and found a corner to sit in with a view of the bikes to keep an eye on them; at this point someone ran off with TheDoctor’s mini BMX but as we hadn’t seen him yet we weren’t too bothered. He arrived about 10 minutes later.
So it was time to move on, although the obligatory group shot came first!
L-R Back: Davywalnuts, Aperitif, Trevor (friend of Stevevw), Stevevw, TheDoctor
L-R Front: Bleakanddivine, SigSilverprinter, Auntie Helen
And lo and behold, about 100 metres from the pub, DavyWalnuts had another puncture! This time four of us were ahead so we waited in a layby next to a field with a bit of entertainment with a young girl trying to put a halter on one horse while its friend kept getting in the way. It was also amusing to watch as she nearly lost a welly in the mud.
Hours later (apparently another spare inner-tube was pre-punctured), the rest of the gang appeared and we carried on. This included the aforementioned 63% gradient hill which went on for quite a long time but I managed to conquer without the granny ring. The weather was still wonderful and some of the views were stunning.
Eventually we stopped for another pitstop at a garden centre. A large choice of cakes presented itself; I went for a proper cream tea with clotted cream and jam (yum). DavyWalnuts decided to make himself the subject of the age-old cry “who ate all the pies?”
Then we set off for the final leg. We passed another rider on a recumbent trike, in fact a Trice Q (same as mine). He was wearing a lot of fluorescent orange and this so blinded me I didn’t notice (but others did) that he apparently had a windsock, rather than a flag, flying on his trike. Novel!
Trevor peeled off just before the end as he lived in another direction. When questioned we discovered he didn’t have a whole lot of doughnuts and cakes at home so we didn’t detour with him to snaffle them (we had been fed some fairy cakes by SigSilverprinter earlier).
We said goodbye to Aperitif and Davywalnuts at the North Station, as well as SigSilverprinter whose lift appeared unexpectedly (he’d got lost on the way to the other station). We hoped that Davy would get home OK without any further punctures.
Steve, TheDoctor, Bleakanddivine and I made our way to the car park and scattered our own separate ways in due course.
I logged 43 miles and had a great day. Thanks all, and thanks to Stevevw for organising it (and for doing a swish modification on a broken mirror arm!)
) and we set off in fair weather.
The second. he remembers watching me play cricket.
