Saturday 28 September 2019 - further faster to St Paul's Walden

The South Herts CTC Saturday Fun Ride is a good step up for fabulous women who want to stretch their ride effort, but this Saturday's was the very strenuous one to Chipperfield, which the further faster fabulous riders deemed a little too strenuous for the time being.  However, they have been itching to go out a day ride for some time, and on Saturday they quietly and informally ventured out on this ride organised by themselves.
This is absolutely brilliant, one of the aims of Five Miles to Fabulous is to give women the confidence to go cycling independently.
However, we have now created an official Further Faster Fabulous club ride, on Monday 7 October.

Teresa reports:

Seven of us met at Morrisons for our longer ride to St Paul’s Walden. We saw Neil assembling for his ride as well.  We went through Sandridge, Nomansland, Leasey Bridge, and Kimpton, a route which we had ridden previously. Then we took a new route (for us) up Claggy Lane and down into Whitwell where we stopped at Emily’s for a brunch. There was a gymkhana taking place there so lots of horse riders. We also saw a black squirrel in the field  - they are common around Hitchin / Letchworth*. We cycled up to St Paul’s Walden and went into the church where the late Queen Mother had worshipped. The photo is of some of the group on the memorial celebrating her life as Duchess of York, the Queen and Queen Mother.

Two of our group decided to return home, so waited for lifts back.  The rest of us took the route around Bullocks Hill, Crouch Green, Nup End and Rabley Heath, before skirting the edge of Codicote along the delightfully named Cowards Lane, to Codicote Road and Wheathampstead, then Sandridge and home.  The weather was fair, with a few light showers. We rode along some lovely quiet lanes north of Codicote, and felt a great achievement at completing this long ride of 33 miles.

* First black squirrel sighting was Letchworth in 1912, not sure why latest report from BBC says Woburn.