Yvan Seth's Hole in the Internet

Hitchin is far from being an XC cycling Mecca of England, but if you have to live here (and it isn't a bad place to live) there is some worthwhile ground for keeping your cycling legs going. This short entry merely presents my encoding of a fun little 30ish kilometre (~20 mile) cycle loop to the west of Hitchin, particularly good for XC "mountain" bikers or cyclocross riders I'd say, but certainly lacking in any real challenge. But we're on the edge of the flat expanses of the mid-East here, barely in the chalk foothills of the Chilterns, so we just have to make do with what we have.

The route given here is mostly taken from a route shown to me by a local mountain biker, with a couple of deviations and additions here and there. I've pored over the OS Explorer map I have of the area and haven't yet found a better route that doesn't involve significantly more road riding. You want to avoid road riding around here as you share the roads with arseholes from either end of the socio-economic spectrum, boy-racers in souped-up trashmobiles and bankers in various pre-souped expensive cockmobiles.

You go through some fun ups and downs. Up Chalk Hill before hitting Great Offley, then a fun loose gravelly downhill into Lilley a little while later. The ride from there up to the edge of the South Beds. Golf Club is mostly uphill on a slight gradient, but worth it for the view over Luton and the little downhill to the edge of the golf course. You could skip the golf course leg and cut 3 or 4 km off the route by just heading up Hexton Road from Lilley (I think there's a bridleway in behind Lilley you could get on.) The best downhills of the route begin after Telegraph Hill, the first taking you down onto Hitchin Road, then the second taking you down into Pirton. These are both fast, mostly singletrack, gradual gradient downhills on hard exposed chalk. Keep an eye out for oncoming traffic though, and little old ladies walking their dogs! From Pirton the trail is pretty close to dead flat, cutting into Ickleford on the Icknield way then into Hitchin down Old Hale way. There's more information on the map, each of the little wheel icons has a note.

I recommend viewing the larger map. You can download the data in KML form here, which can be easily converted into the format of your choice using the tool of your choice — such as gpsbabel.