What a gorgeous day for a bike ride. Right from the start, as we waited for the group to meet under Blackfriars Bridge, watching the mudlarks scavenge below and a rather odd cormorant poking his bill skywards, rather than diving for food, under a beautiful winter morning sun and blue sky. A ridiculously cheap train trip to Harpenden later (£4.50 with groupsave and network card mix) we were riding out of that town and after just a few minutes of busyish urban road, found ourselves on a rather muddy, but traffic free and pleasant old railway line route out of the town. A couple of miles of this, then we were on Marshalls Heath Rd, climbing up to Kimpton, from where we made our way along quiet, if damp, gritty and siltcovered lanes, to Ayot St Lawrence, and Shaw’s Corner, once the home of George Bernard Shaw, who was also rather fond of a bike ride himself, although apparently not the most careful of riders:
“On Sept 12, 1894, George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell ran into each other on the streets in the hills of Monmouthshire. By which I mean that Shaw, a remarkably unskilled bike-rider, crashed into Bertrand Russell as the two of them were riding through the countryside.
Shaw was fine — and attributed his resilience to a vegetarian diet — and his bicycle escaped unscathed. Russell, on the other hand, found himself with a demolished bike and utterly destroyed knickerbockers.”
We spent a while in the village, viewing the outside of the house (closed for the season) and the ruins of the 12th century church which rests, now unperturbed, no hint of the violent turmoil which rendered it thus, in front of the newer 18th century version. 
Then we carried on, through a couple of almost floods, no longer deep and forbidding as they had been just a few days ago, but just deep enough to give a bit of wheeee! factor to the ride and a ford, also easy enough to ride through.
Andrew made a phone call to the pub where I had intended to stop for lunch, only to discover they didn’t do food on Sundays… I had originally planned this ride for a Saturday and omitted to re check… bad ride leader! However, as we headed up towards St Paul Walden, I remembered Emily’s tearoom… we took the rather long and badly potholed track up to the farm, through the stables, rather than the nice, clean and much shorter road straight there from Whitwell village on the other side. Lewisham Cyclists don’t ride with the crowd, you know. We forge our own path!
We timed our arrival just right… and managed to all get a table inside before a horde of off roaders descended, which caused a bit of consternation to some roadies who had arrived before any of us. They occupied a table right by the door which was now wide open due to the huge number of mountain bikers (well about six, Emily’s tearoom isn’t very big). The draught was considerable, and they were right in its chilly path, not quite so chilly as the looks they cast at the off roaders, who remained oblivious to the consternation they had caused.
After lunch we headed up a long slow climb to St Paul’s Walden and down a good clear descent to Preston, into the now flood free dip before heading back up through quiet woodland. We were riding towards one of the highest points on our route, as we had decided to forego Deacon Hill. The Icknield Way off road path which takes you to its foot, had been a struggle in these very wet conditions on my Thursday recce, and the B road alternative I had also sampled, narrow, busy with lots of traffic, so we decided to take the easy way out and turn at Great Offley, and head for the gloriously named Lilley bottom from there. It’s a nice glide down before the next ascent to Tea Green and then a few ups and downs which skirt Luton Airport. We knew the airport was there behind the perimeter fence even though we could see nothing, because the sound of the Easyjet plane we had seen before, on its descent, powering down its engines was like a loud growl of thunder.
Our ride was now nearly over, a few little ups and downs more, then one last descent to the road to Luton.. quickly across to join the Lea Valley path once again back to Harpenden and the train home.
Thanks to everyone who came along with me… a good group of folks who added to the pleasure of this ride. Thanks all.