Central London CTC blog

What does George mean by ‘Old-School’? Answer at the end. (Please don’t skip.)
Our rendezvous was a pretty relaxed 9:30 outside Saint Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square. With no ticket finagles, we were able to loaf around in the sunshine, drinking cappuccino and deafened by St Martin’s Sunday morning peal of bells, until George arrived at about a minute before the published start time. A mere five us had shown up: Roger and Kay, Linus, Keith, and your scribe, a different proposition from the last old-school outing when, on a far less promising day, some dozen or more had shown.
Soon we passed through Admiralty Arch, slipped through the barriers declaring Road Closed, and were floating in line abreast down a traffic-free Mall, a glorious vista on this perfect spring morning. The reason for the road closure soon became clear: a column of parading Home Cavalry was bearing down on us. Oh dear. We skittered past and set our course for Battersea Bridge and Richmond Park.
As we approached the Park Linus, who had warned of a random departure, took off up the road. Good luck to him if he planned to wind it up around the Park: every weekend warrior for miles around seemed to be out. After a quick break at the Kingston Gate, it was heads down and steady tempo as we forged through Mitcham, veered round the back of Sutton, and on into the golf zone of Woodmansterne, Chipstead, and Walton. We attained our apogee just shy of Box Hill, refusing the climb to the summit on the grounds that…well we just didn’t feel like it right?
So we had coffee and cake at the stand in the NT car park in Headley Heath. Mountain bikers whizzed off into the offroad netherland and a large gang of London Dynamos turned up in matching strips. Kay and Roger got the map out and plotted an eastward route over to Sevenoaks so now it was George, Keith and me left for the return leg.
George plunged off down the descent, cutting shapes on the curves like a proper racer, leaving Keith and me to wallow timorously in his wake. But as we caught up to him on the approach to Epsom, there was a reminder not to overdo it: a thicket of worried riders and parked bikes around an ambulance, into which a fallen rider was being stretchered.
There’s no nice way back to town from Epsom so we braced ourselves for a solid main-road hack. By this time of day the sunshine had brought even the most fuddled out and there were cars everywhere. So the three of us got into traffic-joust mode, using all our city smarts to slither through the lines of cars, close enough to feel the vibes from the bangin choons and even catch the odd whiff of spliff from within. For some reason our ready progress especially irritates the youth driving small noisy Vauxhalls with blacked-out windows, who are very free with the antic gestures. But the three of us were not to be moved from our good humour, or diverted from our swift progress. When we reached Clapham Common, I peeled off to the left, heading for Hyde Park Corner, while George and Keith forged on towards the City: at the time of parting the counter read 80–90 km for the day. What a great day out, and home early enough for…well never mind about that.
So, Old-School, what do we mean by that? On the basis of the day, we can say:
No trains. No roast lunch. No fear.