Saturday 6 July 2019 - Women's Festival of Cycling

We have decided to relocate our meeting point ever so slightly - it can get congested with shoppers at the cycle stands so we are gathering just a bit along, past the trolleys and under the canopy.  To make it really clear, we strung up some of our #Women'sFestivalOfCycling bunting

We split the group into a Further Faster and a merely Fabulous option.  Teresa took three riders on the longer, hillier route through Gorhambury and Potters Crouch, Angela and Rona led the other three riders via NCN6, all converging on Greenwood Park.

The Alban Way was lush and green. blackbirds singing with gusto.  It was cooler than recent days.  We had a stop at London Road station to admire the railway infrastructure.

I think this is a delightful picture: one of our fabulous women, modern active travel sign and vestiges of railway communications (those brackets mounted on the bridge abutment) and a St Albans flag, part of a mural.  Lovely greenery in the background too. Our ride ethos in a nutshell - friendship, environment, culture and enjoyment.

This is the London Road station, still in use, it is now a nursery.

Onward and somewhat upward, we were soon in Chiswell Green, a pleasant downhill brought us to Greenwood Park and our coffee stop.

The Further Faster group took a while to reach the rendezvous, which was fine as we carried on with our sports without them.  Our frisbee proficiency is really remarkable.  Once we had all enjoyed coffee, rolls and cake from the Greenwood Cafe the fabulous awards were given out.

We were joined briefly at this point by one of our regular riders, just back from being away and not in time to get to the start of the ride, but she had ridden up to the park to find us.  We left her enjoying her coffee, and the rest of us rode back in one group, along the old track through Greenwood Park, a nip through at Netherway and down through Verulamium Park.