Do you know what I missed the past couple of years? The thud sound as the Ride London magazine landed on the doorstep, shattering your dreams, or even worse, telling you that you had failed to get into the 100 mile ride.
This year’s Ride London does not start with the thud on your hopes and aspirations but with the ping of an email. After Covid put paid to my fourth Ride London, the entries for the 2022 ride were initially on a first come, first served basis for the first 10,000 places.
Having a daughter wanting tickets to a gig that was going onsite at exactly the same time as Ride London 2022, I somehow avoided missing either of them. A couple of clicks and that was it, I was in. The ping of the email confirming that once again I have lost my mind and had decided to ride 100 miles!
But things have changed since we all ditched the offices for kitchen tables and hurriedly repurposed box rooms. Surrey in its munificence decided to ignore the majority wishes of its consultation vote and ditched Ride London.
So where is the new ride? Essex. Instead of heading south-west into the hills, we will now be heading north-east.
From those that know, we should expect it to be broadly flat compared with the Surrey route which suits this bear down to the ground being a person of sound mind who cannot see the logic in seeking out lung-busting, leg sapping climbs as a matter of weekend fun.
The ride will start at Victoria Embankment and end at Tower Bridge. So, no more queuing around the Queen Elizabeth Park as we snaked our way to the start line and some awful music (all the good tunes are usually gone by the time I get there).
So, a return to Ride London and a return to this blog. In the next 100 days or so, I will talk about my training, my life behind bars (!) and hopefully raise a bit of money for a charity near to my family's heart - The Dyspraxia Foundation.
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