The Luton and Herts 150, Sunday 19th August
Posted on Tuesday 21 August 2007 by Charlie Keep
It wasn’t actually raining when I left the house, but it was by the time I met Nick in East Finchley. We remarked that it was what might be described as a particularly wet kind of rain. As we rode north west it became heavier, falling in drifts of fine spray. We arrived in Stanmore to find a surprisingly healthy Central London contingent gathering at the start, many suffering a motivational trough at the prospect of 162km in driving rain, but cheered by the knowledge that there were plenty of getting off places on the route.
We set off in a group of seven. Predictably the wet weather was accompanied by a couple of punctures with Jon and Camille being the unfortunate victims after a particularly muddy stretch through woodland. Soon afterwards these two and Nick decided the gods of cycling fortune were not dealing good cards today and made a tactical withdrawal from proceedings.
By this time I was wet through and left to muse on the poor quality of my clothing choices for the ride. I actually decided that I was so cold that were we to go through a town of any size I was going to stop to buy another layer. Happily it didn’t come to that however as contrary to all expectations it stopped raining around 11 o’clock and my cycling fun quota started to improve from then on, and in any case the ride never went through any settlement that could properly be called a town so it wasn’t going to happen.
Having stopped for a while for the two punctures, those of us carrying on (Naomi, Keith, Stephen and myself) were in a race against time to make the first control before its advertised closing time. We failed, but the control was still open and serving home made flapjacks and squash.
On we battled under low leaden skies. The route rolling up and down narrow gravely lanes, past fields of freshly cut wheat and within flinching distance of Luton airport. Losing touch with my companions I took a wrong turn which cost me several miles, an extra hill and a heavy blow to the morale. I met up with Keith and Naomi at the next and final control where I was able to score a teacake and a banana which gave me a boost and kept me going through increasingly familiar territory around Datchworth, through Tewin and up Essenden Hill.
From here the route turns right to weave around the north west edge of London through Radlett and Bushey. These felt like long kilometres as I began to hallucinate about cups of tea and hot baths. The final hill is cruelly peppered with speed bumps – and felt much longer than it probably was, but I laughed in its face as I came out onto the Uxbridge Road and it dawned on me that I was in the final couple or kilometres and within cruising distance of a big slice of cake at the finish.