Of Mud, Floods, Rainbows and Gales

My qualms about the wind today were largely unfounded. It did begin to be hard work after lunch but I made it home before 4pm. Hope the group made it to Harpenden without being blown off the road!

Adam and I met our friend Jane's group from London at Harpenden train station. The planned route was more or less this: 

We travelled through Redbourn, Gaddesden Row, Great Gaddesden, Little Gaddesden, down Ivinghoe Beacon, Ivinghoe (brief stop), Pitstone, Cheddington, Mentmore, Slapton (the lunch stop, where Adam peeled off to go do an errand in London), Edlesborough and Eaton Bray (where I left the group to head home). 

along the ridge on Gaddesden Row

along the ridge on Gaddesden Row

along the ridge on Gaddesden Row

Ledgemore Lane -- a track off the main road

Ledgemore Lane. I didn't see Jane, Andrew and Bill go through
but Alan, Martin and Adam agreed a strategy: back up and 
take a run at it, and hope to get through without pedalling!
Here - Alan took a short powerful run and kept his knees bent
and feet back nearly as high as his saddle!

Martin had a challenge: riding fixed, he cannot NOT pedal!

Martin pedalling fast and hard.

Martin, nearly taking the water with him out the other side.

  

Just a little further down the lane, we came to a section that was completely impassable with mud, except on foot and even that was pretty dicey! Portage was involved. Oozy, muddy water squirted into my shoes via the holes around the cleat bolts. Thank heavens for wool socks.

And for sunshine!

Stopping to take in the view from Ivinghoe Beacon 
(near the car park)

  

The White Lion at Whipsnade Zoo

Regrouping stop at the top of the hill in Mentmore -
this is one entrance to Mentmore Towers.

  

In the pub waiting to order lunch:  The Carpenter's Arms in Slapton.

Along the way, we discovered a community-run library that are only too rare these days (in Ivinghoe), saw several incredibly intense rainbows, and passed under a mainline railway right at the scene of the Great Train Robbery. 

Each time we turned westward, we had to brace ourselves against the wind. The hardest section was descending Ivinghoe Beacon, calibrating a definite lean leftwards while mentally braced against the fast close passes from cars. Quite tense. 

On leaving the group, my route home took me up Totternhoe into the west side of Dunstable. The wind could really be felt at this point, on the right front quarter. 

 I decided to avoid the main highways and the hostile traffic at the crossroads, so I skirted through residential areas in the South West quadrant of the town including a greenway cruise down the new shared use path called Cemetary Lane. 

At some point, icy wind-driven pellets began hitting my already wind-scoured face. Fortunately, it did not really begin raining in earnest. 

Feeling quite tired by this point, I was grateful for the wind now behind me, pushing me up Caddington Hill! I had in fact been telling myself for the preceding hour that it would be "perfectly acceptable" to walk up Caddington Hill if it all seemed too much. I think the wind was in fact the deciding factor in having a go. And I made it.

Entering Caddington, I found myself confronted with a massive "lake" in the road. My usual strategy in these circumstances (tried and tested) is to follow a car through -- doing so quite closely to benefit from the "parting of the waves" effect of its passage, possible to do because most motorists attempt fords at ~10mph at most. However, unusually no cars were conveniently to hand (just when I wanted one), so I powered through on my own -- getting soaked up to the waist but giving the bike a much-needed clean!

Total "mileage" 71.2 kilometers, average moving speed 16.5 kph. 

The Enigma has definitely earned a thorough clean and lube job tomorrow! 

********************

P.S. And the ride report from Jane the leader is here. Some fabulous photos!