Today is a cycling day. It is also the day chosen by my friend Farah to host our little group of flamenco buddies at her house for lunch. Farah lives in Clapham. You can see where this is going.
Clapham is pretty much diametrically opposite Harringay on a map of London, over ten miles away. I knew roughly where Farah's house was, but I had no idea of how to get there by road, so I asked Google Maps for cycling directions. I should have thought twice about relying on them when the first part of the journey, while probably the shortest route, was a really silly way to go. I set out from home probably half an hour later than I had intended and cycled my usual route down to Newington Green and then went the same way I had to get to the London Metropolitan Archives a few weeks ago, to Rosebery Avenue. After that, I turned onto Farringdon Road which, it being a bank holiday, was utterly deserted, and then went under Holborn Viaduct and up to Ludgate Circus.
The next part of my journey entailed me doing something I'd never done before - riding over the River Thames. Although it has been quite a warm day, there has been a strong breeze, so I was slightly concerned about how windy it might be on Blackfriars Bridge. However, the rail bridge (which now has Blackfriars Station actually on it) shelters the road bridge somewhat, so it was fine from that perspective, but it also shields the downstream view from the road bridge user, which is a shame!
Once over the river, it was a straight ride down to St. George's Circus, which is a roundabout at which I knew I needed to turn right onto Lambeth Road. What the directions hadn't told me, however, was that one can only get onto Lambeth Road at St. George's Circus if one approaches from the south. Having figured out that to get onto the northbound carriageway I would have to do an illegal U-turn or stop on a red route, I opted for turning left down a side street, dismounting and walking across the road. In all this excitement, I entirely missed Lambeth Road and ended up on Waterloo Road instead - completely the wrong direction. This meant that I had to go back to St. George's Circus and repeat the whole performance of side street and walking before I eventually got myself onto the right road, to be rewarded with the pleasure of seeing the Imperial War Museum - a building which, in spite of nearly 12 years living in the capital and many visits as a child, I had never seen in the flesh before. The museum is housed in one of the former homes of the Bethlehem Hospital, or Bedlam as it's perhaps better known, and I think the juxtaposition of a lunatic asylum against a museum of the history war is an interesting one.
The rest of the directions proved to be correct, although I would have preferred to go down the busy main roads than cycle along the pedestrian-riddled Riverside Walk. I carried on past Battersea Dogs and Cats Home (our Ozzy's alma mater) and turned left onto Queenstown Road. It was at this point that I came to the conclusion that the whole of South London is uphill. From this point, it was just a few streets to my destination, and I arrived a little warm and only about an hour after I had intended.
I hadn't decided when I set out whether I would cycle back or get the train (it's fine to take bikes on the London Overground), but mention of the Tube strike that started this evening and is scheduled to carry on until Thursday made up my mind - if I cycled back, I would probably be too broken by the end of it to consider doubling up swimming and cycling tomorrow, or even on Wednesday, but that would be necessary if I'm to do any swimming before Friday; I don't want a repeat of last week's fiasco where I couldn't get on the train and had to go swimming in the evening, as I'm just not going to have time for that this week.
So, having spent a lovely afternoon with my pals from ten years of flamenco dancing, I walked with Ayesha to Clapham Junction to get the Overground to Willesden Junction, then changed for a train to Gospel Oak and then changed again to get to Harringay Green Lanes - with all the waiting for trains and the walk at both ends, it would have been quicker to cycle, even with getting lost. On the other hand, I was pretty much falling asleep standing up on the train on the way back, so I think I made the right decision! That meant that today's cycle was 17.90km, taking my total to 155.36km.
While I was waiting for the train at Willesden Junction, there was a chap on the platform who also had a bike with him. He was an older Irish gentleman who I believe had been at the happy juice. I was standing in front of my bike, against a wall and the chap came up to me and in a moment of remarkable lucidity asked me if it was a folding bike and how it worked. Always happy to shock passers by with a demonstration of folding my full-size bike in half, I obliged and he thanked me and went to have a conversation with the departures board.
Before I go, my friend Claire alerted me to this fantastic reminder for all you other lady cyclists out there. It's a list from 1895 of the things that lady cyclists shouldn't do. I have managed to fall foul of a significant number of these just this weekend - I went to church in my bicycling costume (considering the alternative was going in my wetsuit, I think this was a good result), I have boasted of my long rides, and I wore laced boots, to mention but a few. Enjoy!
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