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Years and years ago I did a ride with Sarah Jones out the back of South Mimms service station and into the wilds of Hertfordshire. Before I go and tell people to do it again, I just thought I'd check that it's still a viable thing to do if you find yourself stuck in South Mimms in the middle of a huge journey with your bike in the back of the car…
All suggestions welcome 🙂
You can ride out (on road or MTB) from South Mimms services, if that's what you're asking? I did so just the other day - there are a couple of ways to cross the M25/A1 and head north/north west out from the services, I can give you more detail if you need?
bear in mind that most motorway service stations now have a two hour parking limit after which they charge you through the nose. welcome to the modern workd
Is that the route that was in mbr about 10-15 years back? I've still got the route card for that somewhere, always meant to have a look but never got round to riding it. Interested as well if it still works.
nbt, I'm only looking at it as a quick blast to break up something like Manchester to Dover, or (as I used to do) Bath to Thetford. All long journeys that would benefit from a half hour of hooning round a few country lanes and empty bridleways.
South Mimms + Bike = ❓
Road bike or crosser on the other hand, lovely lanes around there. Or go for it Rapha 'Hell of the North' style. Their route punches into South Mimms.
loads of riding from potters bar right across essendon etc too
Quite a lot of posts for a South Mimms thread.
Head to J24 of M25 and dump car.
Ride down The Ridgeway A1005, turn left onto bridleway at St Johns Prep School, this takes you under M25 & up to Coopers Lane Road, turn right, turn left onto Hook Lane & head down and up to B156 at Northaw, take Vineyards Road tarmac down and up to The Ridgeway B157, turn right towards Cuffley, a few hundred meters before it turns into East Ridgeway on right hand side is a cheeky footpath with lots of dog poo at top - head down this to bottom, turn left at bottom and carry on with fields to your right, this brings you out onto Northaw Road East B156, turn right and tarmac back to Hook Lane to retrace your steps back to vehicle.
I was there on Sunday-a mix of road&bways with a bit of cheek here and there.Sustrans cycle route 12 goes right though the back of the services.You can follow that south ,up Dancershill towards Monken Hadley wood & Common ,through Trent park for a lap or two.Back up the cheeky foot path(over the road ,100 meters west of the moat :wink:) onto the ridgeway Qwerty metioned. Kind of his route in reverse.
There's also a decent sandy hillock over at Mimshall wood & Hawkshead Wood to the west of Mimmshall Brook(North of the services by a mile or two) which takes you out towards North Mymms Park.To be honest I've only scratched the surface over there... 🙂