Hiya everyone,
just a little note to announce a weekend of rides in London (the one in the UK) on the 22 and 23rd February 2003.
These will be for riders of almost all standards, as you can always catch the tube if you get too tired and meet us further on. Basically you need to be able to ride forwards and freemount okay, nothing much more is vital. We won’t be doing any scary road riding or anything like that. Pace will probably not be too extreme as there’s lots of stuff to play on while waiting for any slower riders.
However, if you’re a bit more silly, there’ll be lots of trials obstacles and general urban sillyness available en route. London is a pretty good place to do this kind of thing and we’ll ride through many of the classic places for urban riding. I’ve ridden the rides I’m planning before and I’ll try to link up a whole bunch of good bits.
Purely by coincidence the rides also go past quite a few major London landmarks, Tower Bridge/Tower of London, Wobbly Bridge, St. Pauls, Tate, South Bank, Eye, Cutty Sark, Buckingham Palace etc. Unicycling is a wicked way to come up to London and see the sights.
I can arrange accommodation for a limited number of people if you want to stay over and ride both nights. There are also lots of youth hostels etc. in London for about £10-20/night. If anyone’s staying over I’ll probably arrange a night ride of some sort, probably via a pub or two.
I’ll post more on the rides later, but the two I was thinking of were:-
Saturday - Greenwich (15 mins train from Waterloo East / London Bridge) by Cutty Sark. Through foot tunnel under Thames to Island Gardens, ride to canary wharf. West to Wapping & Tower Bridge. Cross tower bridge and along river to the London Authority building. Cross London Bridge and ride back streets to St Pauls. Down St Pauls steps to wobbly bridge, over wobbly bridge to Tate Modern, finish at Anchor Pub just east of the Tate. Train back to Greenwich from London bridge if anyone left a car parked there.
Sunday - Waterloo. To Southbank, ride around there a bit on all the fun bits, West to Westminster bridge & over to Parliament Square, through St James Park to Buckingham Palace and play on the fountain, stairs etc. until nasty men tell us not to. Then either through hyde park then south to Chelsea bridge, or straight to Chelsea bridge, to Battersea Park, finish at the Prince Albert pub on Albert Bridge road. Trains back to waterloo from Battersea Park / Queenstown Road.
The sunday’s route (2) will probably be somewhat shorter than the Saturday one, so if you’re worried about keeping up, come on that one.
email news at joemarshall.org.uk if you’re interested, or for more info.
Joe
