Central London CTC blog

The Spyride

I sometimes suspect that Network Rail has a specialist unit that monitors the CTC rides list and then plans engineering work to disrupt it. This time they pulled off a new trick. Due to timetable changes the riders arrived early! I’d planned on the basis that people would be arriving on the train from London at 10.24 and so arranged to a meeting time with Spokes of 10.30. However they arrived at 10.11 before most of the Spokes riders were there. The necessitated an impromptu coffee stop at the Junction Café near the station to keep people warm.

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First of all the credits: this ride was a blatant rip-off of Colin Wing’s “Docks and Ducks” ride. He was very gracious when I rang him and asked if I could use it. He said that there was no copyright on rides and that he’s published it in The London Cyclist so that others could ride it. The only bit of the ride I can claim any credit for was the stretch from St Pancras to Southwark Bridge.

My thanks also to Tom and Ian for acting as backstops. Their job was essential as the route twisted and turned through the City and along the south bank of the Thames. Riders do need to get into the habit of looking behind at turns to check that the riders behind can see them.

For a 1* ride, it was well attended with over 20 joining the ride at either St Pancras or London Bridge. more »

Colin Wing’s rides have a following. I counted 14 on the ride, though somehow there were only 13 names in the attendance book. We left Enfield via the elegant Gentleman’s Row and the New River, built in the reign of James I to bring water to London.

The New River in Enfield

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The website said “Easy ride largely on quiet roads”. And so it proved. It must have been one of the shortest 1* rides on record, only about 21km. After coffee at the start at Welwyn Garden City we followed the Ayot Greenway, a former railway line, to Wheathampstead, about an hour’s ride. more »

The July Little Green Ride did not have a promising start. We had to leave from Stevenage, as morning trains to Knebworth weren’t running. This cost Edward £20, as he’d only bought a ticket as far as Knebworth. Then we got lost in the cyclepaths of Stevenage, less than 50 metres from the station, thanks to the spectacular incompetence of the leader (me). Mikal came to the rescue with the map application on his iPhone so with the combination of his 21st century technology and Tom’s 20th century OS map, we managed to escape to the country. In my own defence, I will say that the Stevenage cycle network has defeated better navigators than me.  more »

This ride was a bit of a nostalgia trip for me as I was repeating the first ride I ever led for a cycling group back in the 1980s. As there was almost perfect cycling weather, sunny, clear, warm but not too hot I expected to see more riders than the four who arrived at Welwyn Garden City station. Perhaps people had got Royal Wedding fatigue and were not interested in doing anything else.

We left Welwyn GC by the cycle path through Sherrardspark Wood, part of the Sustrans Great North Road route, passed through Ayot Green, Ayot St Peter and on through Kimpton Mill to our coffee stop at Emily’s Teashop at Whitwell. more »

The last time I ran this ride it was as a joint CTC / Rough Stuff Fellowship [RSF] ride. But nobody from the CTC came so it became a purely RSF event. This time, however, good weather bought out people out and we had seven riders. After coffee at the Rodboro Buildings near the station in Guildford we set off. We got the worst out of the way first as the western outskirts of Guildford are not a thing of beauty. Soon we came out onto Broadstreet Common and the start of the Christmaspie Route to the north of the Hogs Back. For well over an hour we were largely on off road paths with the odd minor road until we got to our first stop at The White Hart at Tongham. While some of us had a leisurely drink, some with a more serious interest in alcohol rode to the top of the village to visit the Hogs Back Brewery.

After Tongham we continued to Runfold and then began the return run on National Cycle Route 22 back towards Guildford. We had a late lunch at the Seale Craft Centre and tea at the café at the Watts Gallery after visiting the extraordinary art nouveau memorial chapel nearby. After that there was a very steep climb up to the Hog’s Back to pick up a track along the ridge and steep descent into Guildford.

There are a few photos in the gallery.

It was a good start to the year for the ‘Little Green’ on Sunday with 13 riders turning out, ten at Finsbury Park and three having already joined the train at Kings Cross. Along with veterans such as Sue Dorey and John Ackers we welcomed several newcomers.

I had opted to head west of the A1(M) hoping that the slightly more open roads here would be in better condition than among the high-hedged lanes of east Hertfordshire. more »