The Dahlia Café

Devil Cake

We took the hint from the Sunday riders and decided on a nice short route in the heat. Although it was actually a bit cooler this morning.  Our quartet headed west along the Alban Way for a change, through by Berners Drive, Gorham Drive and Butterfield Lane to New Barnes Mill.  A cheery greeting from some fast chaps on lightweight cycles coming along in the other direction.  We’d be going faster too if we were going downhill!

A bit of a slog up Napsbury Lane and then a scamper down and voila! we are at Ayletts Nurseries.  Astonishingly, this is our first 5MTF visit to Ayletts, although we were none of us individually strangers there. We picture for your delight the Devil Cake.

Painted nails

We also show you the pink lemonade in the clutches of today’s youngest rider (age 12) who has painted her nails most beautifully.

The Dahlia Café was popular with cyclists today, we met a couple from the Forty Plus.  Refreshed by cake and companionship, we allowed ourselves a little shopping time, then headed back to Fleetville using London Road, Highfield Park and Camp cycle routes.

Bike Week Ride

We were very cheerful at the start – it was sunny!

Come on it's about to rain! Eleven ladies arrived, including five who had not been out on a 5MTF before. We were waved off by Jon and Neil from the Saturday Saunter, and as if that wasn’t enough male company for one morning, we timed our exit onto the Alban Way to coincide with the departure of a Beaver pack on wheels. They decided we looked faster than them and waved us through ahead!

We headed east to Ellenbrook, and then turned west again along the lanes through Wilkins Green to Smallford. We rode steadily along Station Road and Hatfield Road to get to Notcutts, where we rather swamped the cycle parking.  We took up quite a lot of the café too! In fact, we made such an impression that the manager came over to see us…..to ask if she could have some of the Bike Week leaflets that we were waving around!

We did wonder if we would get drenched on departure, but the rain held off, and we got back on the Alban Way, and then went round through Highfield Park and back to Fleetville by the Camp Road Cycle Route. Ride distance was 8 miles.

Exploring the Nicky Line

Our first ever ride from Harpenden did not attract any harpies, but we did impress the press. We featured briefly as photographic headline news on the St Albans Review web page on Sunday morning, so perhaps we will also be in the print edition if nothing more momentous happens ere then. We were celebrating Global Women’s Cycling Day, a US-based initiative recognising the importance of bicycles in the emancipation of women. The Day is chosen to coincide with US Mothers’ Day, so we were actually a day ahead. Enough of the chat, let's ride!

Those Harpenden folk get up nice and early to drive in and go shopping, so we were a bit slow through town but were soon rising above it on our way up to the level access to the Nicky Line at Roundwood. Downhill from there to Redbourn, enjoying the scenery, but looking out for the gaps in the old sleepers at the track crossing just before the roundabout. We were soon ensconced in The Hub, a café and cyclists’ refuge. We had enjoyed the Nicky Line so much and were so refreshed at the Hub, that we carried on a bit further along the line, to Three Cherry Trees Lane, then came back along Punch Bowl Lane to the main road. Since the appearance on a TV baking show, Redbournbury Mill has been mobbed, and they now sell only flour at the Mill on Saturdays, bread sales have moved to the Chequers car park where there is easier access by car. Hmm. Good cycle parking. A wet winter means the water was flying over the mill wheel.

As we had no Harpenden-based riders out, we turned for St Albans at the end of Beesonend Lane. We had really enjoyed extending our range however, so may well have another Harpenden start in the future.

Frühling, Frühling wird es nun bald.

Six days into British Summertime, and at last the words of this German folk song are believable – soon it will be spring.  Four of us made our way east along the Alban Way in sunshine, right through to Hatfield.  The bridge over Wellfield Road was tempting – only a mile further to Stanborough - but our way lay along Wellfield Road itself, and we were delighted to find that the footway has been most effectively converted to shared use, with small gabions on the roadward side to enable path-widening.  That took us fairly easily to White Lion Square and thus Hatfield Farmers’ Market.

We enjoyed browsing the plants and produce. The primulas were very eye-catching.

In spite of the sun, we were keen to find coffee and cake indoors, and duly invaded the relocated Simmons.  We totally flummoxed the young trainee, who found four fabulous women all wanting different drinks and pastries on the one order a tad overwhelming.  A request for toast was the last straw for the poor lad; his supervisor came to the rescue.

We were in like disarray ourselves however when we stopped on our way back to assist a young couple with a flat tyre.  The tyre was one of those very tight fitting ones, and we were sufficiently discombobulated by the effort required to get the wretched rubber off the rim that we forgot to check that the thorn we had removed was the only one before we wrestled the tyre back on again.  Oh “bother”.

From Ellenbrook we made an architectural diversion down Wilkins Green Lane to enjoy a glimpse of ‘Torilla’.    Dating from 1935, this house was designed by F.R.S Yorke, who was one of the first British architects to design in the Modernist style.  The Hertfordshire Building Preservation Trust later intervened to prevent its demolition.  We also enjoyed the much larger and grander and older Great Nast Hyde House.  What you see from the lane is actually the back of the house; the proper front entrance to the house is up a drive from St Albans Road.

We rejoined the Alban Way at Smallford and carried on westward and back to Morrisons.  It might appear from the sign that by the time we got back we would have ridden at least 12 miles, but bear in mind that we had started from Fleetville, not central St Albans.  Although, even allowing for the distance vagaries on Alban Way signs, we did on this occasion go further than the nominal five.

Winter still!

Saturday 16 March dawned grey and wet with forecast likewise.  Fabulous women know that if they don’t want to go out in the rain, they don’t have to.  They also know that waterproofs are pretty effective these days.  Two of us took the waterproof option.  Regular riders will  know we have a flexible approach to routes and destinations, and today we decided to flex in the direction of a short ride and a long coffee stop. Our traditional wet weather destination is Notcutts, but even that seemed a bit far, so the special feature of this ride was a new 5MTF coffee stop, and as the leader had not been before, another special feature was a led leader.

The atmospheric photograph of our waterproofs dripping on the balcony at Dunelm Mill did not come out very well, so you will just have to imagine our enjoyment of hot drinks and colourful house wares.  It was not raining quite so hard for the return , so we took the indirect route via Oaklands College and Jersey Lane.

We hope for better weather on 6th April.

Rona Wightman

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(*)/ (*)  happy cycling!

Winter already

What a beautiful day for our last programmed 5MTF ride of 2012! Clear blue sky. And, er, some snow on car windscreens. Dashing from the house to the meeting point I was glad I had put on my winter jacket, but regretted that I had not put on warmer layers below.

We decided we needed some open country so as to be in the sun, and we headed down the Camp cycle route for Highfield Park, looped along east then turned north through Oaklands College.

We discovered that the disadvantage of open country was exposure to the biting wind. So, some respite on Jersey Lane, and beautiful autumn colour as we emerged at Sandridge. The eagle-eyed may be able to make out the bicycle sign in front of the tree. Then by Nomansland and Amwell to Wheathampstead. Bakery full to overflowing, but space for us at Jack’s for hot drinks and calorific intake. For our return we took the scenic track along the north of the Lee, then up to Beech Hyde Lane and swiftly (wind behind) to Sandridge and back to St Albans via Sandridgebury Lane.

Open Studio Ride

It was a beautiful morning, and the quartet’s route specification was ‘get us into the countryside’. As my selection from the Open Studios programme (www.hvaf.org.uk) was on the fringes of Southdown; that was the route sorted. We headed up to the King William by way of Woodstock Road, Homewood Road and Marshal’s Drive, down Valley Road, and into Sandridgebury Lane. I always enjoy the view you get of Sandridge from this lane. We nicked through at the Scout Hut and came down the bridleway to Heartwood Car Park, where lots of walkers were about for the Herts Hike. We continued down the access track and across to Coleman Green Lane.

We now experienced the best and worst of Range Rover drivers. A gent waited for a widening of the road and then came smoothly through. Then a young woman nearly took us out as she needlessly and stupidly cut the corner out of Drovers Way. Ruffled nerves were soothed by the beauty of Nomansland and a friendly encounter with a couple of horsewomen. At Pipers Grove we were a bit ahead of schedule, so headed to Artscape at Southdown for our bonus art exhibition and to stock up on artists’ supplies.

Back to our destination and a warm welcome from artists Belinda Naylor-Stables (drawing, painting, textiles) and Elspeth Keith (ceramics). We were plied with delicious tea and coffee whilst the artists gave us background to their work. Elspeth’s ceramics have an amazing delicate and crusty texture thanks to the fizzy glaze she uses. Works of nature and human craft influences Belinda’s paintings. Anglo-Saxon runes have recently influenced both artists. Actually, the artwork that particularly appealed to us was the wheelbarrow, but fortunately our speculation on how to get it back to St Albans was cut short, as this one is not for sale.

The other picture shows us getting ready to leave Frog’s Folly and head back to St Albans. As the route out was so satisfactory, we saw no need to go a different way back.