Central London CTC blog

For those who wonder ‘what the CTC ever did for us’, see the extract below from the CTC website:

Campaign Update

Following a high-profile campaign from CTC, the Government has agreed to amend the Highway Code to improve cyclists’ safety and to encourage drivers to take more care around vulnerable road users.

In total over 40 rules have been changed to the benefit of cyclists.

The new version makes clear that cyclists have every right to cycle on the road. Rules 61 and 63 state that cycle lanes and cycle facilities, are “not compulsory” and the decision to use them “will depend on your experience and skills”. more »

I was thinking perhaps last Sunday would not be a good day for a ride, given the weather forecast, but was amazed to find seven waiting for me at Liverpool Street - The Giraffe, The She-wolf, her cub, The Wastemistress, Stephen, Charlie (welcome back, Charlie) and Danish Tom (who’s been living in The Netherlands - more of that later).

In the interests of keeping warm, I set off from Witham at a quick pace and managed to keep my flock in tow. The weather was foul. Then it got fouler. I only managed one grave navigational malfunction (they didn’t notice the other three), but since I didn’t want to get the Proper Maps wet, I was reading from a ukstreetmap printout.

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Sunday May 27th, steady rain from first light, worse predicted to come - a washout for wimps. So, just to make you all jealous, Bob Davis has went us some pictures from his recent trip to France with Geoff Thomas. Which provide a timely advert for our jerseys - orders now being taken for the next batch, e-mail secretary@centrallondonctc.org.uk

Bob on Col de Mens       Geoff outside Luc en Diois

Never mind, Nick, that’s more or less where Inez, the Giraffe, the She-wolf, her cub, Chocolate Sue and Simon and I will be this time next week.

Tee hee

J

On a perfect sunny May morning, a disparate bunch gathered at Chelmsford for Michael Belcher’s two-star ride through the Essex lanes - two-star stalwarts, newcomers and a handful of three-star regulars who had ridden out to keep up their weekly mileage quota. The day’s 80km featured two fords (one ridable by all but the most timid, the other a long murky stream of indeterminate depth that no-one dare try…) , a relaxed lunch at the White Hart in Stebbing and the ever-welcoming Jericho tea-rooms in Blackmore …

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A lovely sunny day greeted the 3 riders on my ride: Paul F, Tom and Stuart. This was the third attempt at riding the planned 100 km route to the Vale of the White Horse. After some negotiation with the guard all the riders managed to squeeze their bikes in to guards van which was only supposed to take 6 bikes for ‘health and safety’ reasons. There was another party of 4 cyclists who had managed to get their bikes on first which meant that the van had 8 bikes. By getting on to this fast intercity train the ride started from Reading at 10.30 am a bit later than advertised, but this was due to the rescheduling of the train times.

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My own stupidity amazes even myself sometimes! Although I’ve caught the train to Box Hill many times before, always from Victoria, on this occasion my autopilot took me to Waterloo! Fortunately I noticed a missed call on my mobile, rang back and spoke to Charlie at Victoria who was wondering where I was. Jumped on the next train to Clapham Junction in the hope of meeting the Box Hill train but at Clapham there are too many platforms and not enough information (and I’d probably missed it anyway!) so I caught one to Leatherhead and cycled the last couple of miles to Box Hill. Only 20 minutes late in the end, half of which would probably have been lost to faffing anyway!

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At least it was not raining when 10 of us convened at Victoria. Nick Bloom arrived bearing apocalyptic predictions about what the weather was to do to us in the afternoon. It was decided to buy tickets to Redhill to facilitate an early bale out. We arrived at Purley, only to have the first wardrobe faff of the day as it had started to rain gently at first, and then with more purpose.

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Sunday and we’re off to Flitwick. That is only part of the story, so where shall we start.

The Beginning

Rides list compilation time and I have submitted a ride in the northern part of Hertfordshire. A week before the list is due out a flurry of emails as Richard has spotted that on the day of the ride there will be no trains to/from Hitchin. OK says I lets do the ride but we can start from Flitwick, but where to have lunch. Paul Krebs suggests Cottered so that leaves me to work out a route with those parameters. Eventually, Microsoft Autoroute allows me to plan a ride that hits those requirements.

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A May Day special. Not on May Day, because we now have a politically inexact May Bank Holiday.

Here’s the route (including the two small navigational malfunctions).

We set off from Stortford (after a tour of the back end of the shopping centre) towards Manuden, but were befuddled by lack of signage, so ended up in Stansted Mountfichet.

From there it was plain (but damp) sailing via Manuden to Clavering, on fast, undulating roads with a tailwind and hardly any traffic, thence via Arkesden to Elmdon. Just after Arkesden I was foolish enough to take off my jacket - this resulted in the rain turning from drizzle to torential at Elmdon, where we took advantage of a particularly well-built and spacious Audax Hotel and engaged in quiet and civilised social intercourse (or chatting, as it’s otherwise known) until the rain returned to drizzle status.

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