Wheeling from Ware

The Sunday ride was scheduled to depart from Kingsway shopping-centre car park in Ware to allow a ride heading east into Essex for a change. Seven people were at the start and we pedalled off at 9.30 on a rather dull cloudy day for June with a strong south wind rather strangely keeping the temperature below average for the time of year.

Easy, fairly flat country lanes took us through Widford and Perry Green then a loop through the small roads east of Sawbridgeworth preceded the long downhill into the Stort Valley and to a new coffee-stop destination of “The Shed” -  a valid description for this wooden structure in the car park of the old maltings buildings next to Sawbridgeworth train station. Although another large cycling group from Chelmsford got there just before us, we were served quite quickly.

After the 11’s stop we meandered along a virtually traffic-free route east, then north west to our Bishops Stortford lunch stop at The Port Jackson pub by the river. En-route we used a pretty road classified as a bridleway past Matching church and ponds where we paused for a photo.

We had our lunch outside by the Stort navigation basin where we saw a presumably electric canal boat with a clever name – see photo in the gallery below. After lunch we used a cycle path alongside the busy A120 road to access the small lanes through Bury Green to Little Hadham, then back via Cold Christmas to the car park at about 3.30 after 46 miles. It’s good to ride in less familiar scenery occasionally.