To the Palace! (Well, nearly)

Yesterday, a running day, I decided that after cycling to and from work and swimming on Friday, my 40 minutes of netball and my pre-match warm-up constituted sufficient running, given that I only had to do 20 minutes anyway.  (We won our netball match, by the way - Cumberland G 19-14 Palmers Green.)

The Pirates flyer.  Y'know
just in case you're
interested.

Today was a cycling day.  Sundays are usually quite busy for me, being a church organist and itinerant chorister, and today was no exception.  One of the things I do as part of my musical role at my church, St. Paul's, Harringay, is help co-ordinate a programme of concerts and other musical events called Music on the Ladder (the church is in an area called the Harringay Ladder, so named because of the road layout).  As part of Music on the Ladder, we hold a couple of "come and sing" events each year, where people rock up to the church at lunchtime, rehearse a choral work in the afternoon and then perform it to a largely unsuspecting and usually very forgiving audience in the evening.  On 7 June, we're going to be doing "The Pirates of Penzance" in this format and today was one of our audition days for the principal roles.  In order to audition some folks at a different church, I needed to get from the morning service at my church to the other church as quickly as possible and, because the other church is on the other side of the railway, it's a bit awkward to get to.  I decided that the best thing to do was cycle there and back, regardless of the hills.


Oh yes, the hills.  This part of London is known, from a techie geographical perspective, as the "Northern Heights".  It's more than a bit undulating, with some roads that are almost vertical (yes, yes, I'm clearly exaggerating).  To give you an idea, Muswell Hill (which is very close to where I was going), is the residual geological structure of an ice age glacial moraine.  Don't say I never tell you anything.  After leaving church, I walked across the railway bridge at Harringay Station and then got on my bike and pointed it in the direction of Hornsey.  One of the first things I had to do was go down a massive hill, which was terrifying and exhilarating. I stopped to take a picture of the view from the top of the hill, which gives you an idea of just how steep it is and also gives you a nice look at Alexandra Palace.  My route took me through central Crouch End and the attendant shopping traffic and then down Middle Lane and through Priory Park, before heading via some side streets onto Park Road.  Another couple of hundred metres and I was at my destination, Hornsey Parish Church, which is more or less in the shadow of Alexandra Palace.  I was amazed at how quickly I had got there - it took me one second shy of 15 minutes to get there, including my photo stop and a couple of waits to pull out on right-hand turns.  My top speed (down the massive hill!) was 22.39 miles per hour.

After hearing a prospective Major-General and Sergeant of Police, I got back on my bike to head home - as I was going home rather than back to church, I chose a different route which would involve me going up a much less daunting hill than I went down on the way.  I went on the main road along to one of the side-pieces of the Harringay Ladder, Wightman Road, and then set off, for the first time ever, along that road from the northern end - every time I ride anywhere it involves using the southern part of this road, but the northern part is, you've guessed it, hilly, and so I avoid it if possible.  I managed it, though, and was rewarded with the unusual delight of being able to turn left into my road, rather than right (just over the brow of a hill on a steep downhill and on a speed bump...)

Adding my cycle home on Friday (7.45km) to today's round trip (5.60km) and my previous total, I have now cycled a total of 57.14km.

Tomorrow is a rest day, but I'm contemplating cycling to work anyway.  I'll see how I feel in the morning.