Yesterday a little gang of muniers went for a ride in the Heart of Londons
Docklands, just to to east of the city centre ( this is London UK). We
meet up up at greenwich, beside the Cutty Sark ship for a bit of hopping
and bouncing along side some surprised skater kids, before taking the
stairs down to the foot tunnel under the Thames. Once down there we
ignored al the no cycling signs and rde under the river. Emerging from the
lift on the other side to follow Joes meandering route to Tower Bridge.
The group was Joe(dumb blonde), Joe(engineer), Rocket, Sarah, Harvey
and Chris. Only Joe (e) was on a 20 so he had to pedal like stink all the
time to keep up. The rest of us were on a mix of 26inch Pashleys and
24inch fat trye unis.Joe and Harvey were the jump masters of the group,
Rocket, Joe and myself are more XC riders and Chris is still getting used
to a 26 after a long gap with no uni but having a 20 inch as a kid.
This being a Joe ride we quickly found some mud, even in the East end of
London there is mud and Joe found it on the egde of the Mudchute City
Farm, there was even a cattle grid to compleate the rural image. Much of
the first section of the route was past massive office blocks built on
the old dock sides. We all managed not to fall in the deep water and
crossed a load of bridges. There were a few play stops, one of which was
by a big fountain, Joe proved that you could ride all round the basin
edge, but no one else took up his challenge.
After a bit we left the offices behind and started riding down residental
roads, every now and then we could acess a bit of the river side, the tide
was out and it was a LONG way down from the walk ways to the muddy beach
below, fortunatly no one made the trip. A kids playground provided the
oppotunity for Joe and Joe to show off jumping on things, and Rocket the
chance to do a bit of slackrope walking up the climbing stucture.The local
kids made all the usual clown comments, bet the next clown with a uni who
vists their school will have a hard time.
Lunch time found us at St Katherines Dock, a rather touristy bit of quay
next to Tower Bridge. Some of the group jumped on and off bits of
scupture, the security guards were fairly good about it and only once told
us to “go easy”. We therefore went easy and stoopped for pizzas.
After Lunch 5 of us plus a couple of walking friends of Harveys who
joined us at lunch, crossed Tower bRidge and took in the play spot by the
new London Authority building, theres a rather cool stone amphitheatre
there with steps shallow enough that I could ride down them. Visable
inside the building was a rideable looking ramp, which allegedly curls all
the way up the tower. If any one knows who we need to ask for permission
to ride it, could you let me or Joe know.
Other ride continued along the south bank to London Bridge, the area was
swarmimg with tourists and we got a lot of comments, ever notice how you
can hear just half a comment and know what the other half was… Once over
London Bridge we had a spell with no tourists riding along side a dirty
great dual carrige way road till we were just blow St Pauls
cathedral. We took a little while at St Pauls to play on the steps of
Sermon Lane.
From sermon lane we could look over the Wobbly bridge to the Tate Modern
at Bankside acrross the river. The wobbly bridge ( which no longer wobbles
in quite the same way) was covered in people the whole time, its become a
real tourist draw since it was reopened. Needless to say this crowd made
it all the more attractive to Joe and Joe as a race tack and they raced
each other over, Joe won, but only just. Harvey meet some more people that
he knows at Bankside and we spent a while hanging aound listening to
regae watching bubbles drift past and admiring Joes acheivement in
geting a Platypus bladder to siphon water out of a bottle as a re-filing
method.
The last section of ride I did, took us along the South bank to The
National Theatre. The bike hire place at Gabrials wharf admitted they
don’t do unis. While a small girl in the back of a trailer bike squealed
very excitedly when she realised we only had one wheel each on our
cycles. I left the others playing on the stone circle by the National and
took the subterainen route through to Waterloo station.
We didn’t do masses of miles ( maybe 10 ) but we did do plenty of
steps, benches and other stuff. Good fun.
I hope the sunday riders had a much fun
Sarah
Union of UK Unicyclists
By and for UK riders