London, that thur London.
For my mum it was always the capital, to me and my siblings it was up town. For years, whenever we said to mum that we were going up town, she always thought we meant the nearest town a couple of miles away, not the Big Smoke 15 or so miles away.
One of the beauties of Ride London is that you get a chance to ride the streets without traffic….well aside 20,000 cyclists or so. No hoodlum cabbies taking sudden u-turns in front of you, or vans pulling in to do a delivery. Just you on the streets.
Such is the size and energy of London, even the middle of the night can seem like rush hour as my Welsh taxi driver found to to his astonishment when he took me from Cardiff to London once after a rugby game - paid for by my host I should add in case anyone thought I was loaded.
‘This is like Cardiff on Friday at 5,’ he exclaimed just narrowly avoiding a moped and I nodded in grim affirmation.
‘Yep and keep an eye on the road,’ I answered as a sightseer nearly bounced off his bonnet while he gawped at Harrods at midnight.
So it is a glorious occasion to be able to hit a high average speed not worrying about lights (shut it most of us do actually stop at reds you know) and hearing nothing but the swish of tyres on the tarmac.
Not so when training. In training you have to choose whether to go and do parts of Ride London or not.
One particular nasty spot to do training on is Newlands Corner. The steep climb is the A25, a single carriageway that goes from near Guildford to Dorking and one of the major routes for artics to deliver to the market town. You have to keep your wits about you as they hurtle pass you and pray that they are aware of the speed limit as you bomb down the other side – still the view at the top is glorious.
But for sheer scale of traffic, you can’t beat London. And for a commuter like me, London holds few scares.
For the latest training ride, I knew I shouldn’t spend a length of time in the saddle. I had strained my back during the week and had only started recovering from having little mobility.
So that was why I had wandered out without a plan. Perhaps a small hop round Bushy Park and Hampton. Or a jaunt to Richmond.
How I ended up on Coombe Lane on the homeward stretch to Ride London, I had no idea. Coombe Lane is a nasty surprise to some on Ride London. Having done the Surrey Hills, most look forward to the home run and to be greeted by a sudden ramp by the school is a bit of a shock if you don’t know it’s there. Let alone Wimbledon Hill!
I had mistakenly thought Chelsea were playing at home as I’d seen a few shirts about so I thought ‘Well that rules out Putney and Kings Road then’ and stayed on the South Side to Westminster, nipping in and out of the Sunday traffic, happy when it relented and I could get up to a decent speed, only occasionally braking for a phombie crossing between cars.
Up to Trafalgar Square and I hit the outward bound stretch – the A4. Out through Kensington towards Hammersmith. Diligently following the advice that the flyover was not suitable for cyclists (except on the actual day itself), I headed to Chiswick.
All the way from Westminster, the traffic was so heavy that I was quite often the fastest machine on the road with traffic frequently not going any faster than 15mph to 20 mph.
It was marvellous. It made me look like I was actually fast and fit!
Over past the Taskmaster house and up to Richmond Park and Sawyers Hill. Now Sawyers Hill is an oddity. It’s not particularly steep nor long but how many times had I mucked up my gearing on it.
Pleasingly, I hit the ramp at a good speed and kept the momentum up – actually remembering to get into a proper gear.
Of course, on Strava I was around 200th but hell that was out of 500 cyclists, I’d take that. Through the park and out through Kingston, headed over Hampton Court Bridge then home.
My back…was ok…ish. I needed a bit of time to straighten and cajole the inflamed muscles to co-operate but considering I had not been on the bike since Wednesday, I felt pretty good.
But there was that thing at the back of my mind…I couldn’t put it off much longer, I was going to have to tackle some hills.
Training Ride 7
Distance: 33.5 miles
Average speed: 14.9mph
Distance so far: 221.5 miles
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