(Thursday 3rd August 2023)
The weather has had a few words with itself, and delivered some sunshine. We bid farewell to The Greyhound, temporarily part company with Mr Potato Head.
Heading North across Pitstone Common, we cross back into a SE finger of Buckinghamshire and along The Ridge Way; Pauls Knob, off to the SW is legitimate cause for another wee snigger, we then climb up onto Ivinghoe Beacon (Beacon Hill 233m). North east, we again cross a border, at Edlesborough, this time into Bedfordshire (Shittington, probs fed up of constatnly being confused with Dorset’s Shitterton).
We hit the outskirts of Dunstable, and urban concrete into Luton, home of Stacey Dooley (TV presenter and 2018 Strictly Champion). Heading N we pass the Wardown Park Museum then Luton Town Ladies Foods. (they need a shout out; raising money to Providing school lunches for children in the Luton area who do not have access to the food voucher scheme, #ENDCHILDFOODPOVERTY). We pick up The Icknield Way NE, a Neolithic trail over 5000 years old, sneak around Warden Hill (195m) crossing another golf course , then head back into Hertfordshire, through a sliver of green at Hoo Bit(?!, Deacon Hill (172m), then back into Wiltshire over the river Hiz at Ickleford. There’s a guns-testing haul of laden bikes over the railway line to earn a stop at Cadwell Farm Lavender Fields & Cafe for a second breakfast. Here we are joined by Mr Potato-Head (looking considerably de-plumped). He has parked the van in Hitchin, and ok’d his cycling head for the rest of the trip (yay!). At the cafe, slice of orange and raspberry cake doesn’t touch the sides, so I throw down a piece of rose and pistachio on a second wave of tea. Correct refueling and nutrition are critical concepts in performance cycling.
We rejoin the Icknield Way, and pull into Letchworth Garden City. The World Health Organisation estimates taht air pollution kills “an estimated seven million people worldwide every year“, so I think it’s worth paying homage to Ebenezer Howard and colleagues who created LGC as the first example of a Garden City, “a new type of settlement which provided jobs, services, and good housing for residents, whilst retaining the environmental quality of the countryside, in contrast to most industrial cities of the time.“(Wikipedia).
An engineered detour takes us to the must-see attraction of Sollershott Circus, the UK’s First Roundabout, built around (sorry) 1909. They have a sign up to celebrate!
Not sure everyone is quite as enthusiastic, so after a few laps, I turn off. We decide to pop into Halfords for more 650b inner tubes, and get an assessment on my bottom bracket; it’s squeakier than Casanova’s mattress… A member of staff declares that the bike looks well-used (it’s literally dripping mud) and before he’s even got close, explains the drivetrain will “need lots of work” (it doesn’t; we leave).
Over the M1, Cal is bitten by another bee/wasp-like insect again (turns out to be thankfully much less severe this time) Then much general NE bike wiggling, over Cat Ditch stream (kittens beware) through Ashwell and across in into Cambridgeshire (Stow cum Quy and Prickwillow). We turn SE at Melbourn for urgent cakey restoratives at The Hideaway Cafe.
Good job we caked-up as our nettle mettle was about to be tested. A slight navigational twitch plunged us S into Essex (Turkey Cock Lane, Ugley and Bachelors Bump) and a pit of nettles. Swimming through the ditch, we flayed to the field edge, then enjoyed a robust thistle and burr shin thwacking before emerging back onto the Icknield Way Trail, and past another golf course.
A final shin-polishing from a field of golden wheat ears yields yelps of pain. Our penance rewarded with some absolutely mint single-track, we barrel through the trees to a bridge over the M11. A few more miles brings us through Hadstock and into the nestled bosom of The Three Hills at Bartlow, on the S edge of Cambridgeshire.
