The annual Saturday Greenwich Ride has become a club tradition. Since I took it over from Harry we have varied the date and designed several variations of the route. Some of our rides have been spectacularly well attended and I have needed help with leading from friends at all levels in the club.
This year, however, there was a muted response. Remembering the post-Covid ride when we had nearly forty takers, I had recruited four co-leaders and between us we made ten recces of the route, sorting out a couple of issues requiring diversion planning.
One of the factors which may well have put people off was the heatwave. Indeed there was a Government Health-Heat Amber warning extant on Saturday, despite a forecast of reducing temperatures and a breeze. But the previous Wednesday's rides had been successful in worse conditions and after consultation with all my co-leaders and the club Chair, I decided to go ahead.
Thus at the Pavilion Cafe in Beddington Park on Saturday morning there gathered a small group of familiar faces; Sharon, Karen and Stuart, regular Saturday riders, John and Anne, now most often seen with the Cs on a Wednesday, Jacqui, an occasional Saturday rider and a welcome guest, and Tim G, B Group leader or sub leader every other week. I had planned two groups but with the news of a domestic accident that very morning preventing Roger and Anna from coming, and a late withdrawal by Pinky, we elected to ride as one group, which allowed Tim to take up his favourite position as back marker.
It was warm and sunny, sure, but as soon as we got going there was a welcome northeasterly breeze. I had had to plan a way around the seemingly never-ending pavement and roadworks around Croydon parish church but the ride really starts as you leave Croydon on the old Addiscombe Railway track. Given the heat warning we had mapped out some sensible safe stopping points for drinks breaks and this was the first, half way to coffee at Loki on the Beckenham Road.
The pleasant trip up the Pool and Ravenbsbourne rivers this year was sadly interrupted by the bridge closure which took us a couple of recces to work out a way around but it is still a pleasant ride up to Lewisham. Traffic seemed lower in the heat through Lewisham centre and soon we were climbing up to Blackheath, crossing Shooter's Hill and finding ourselves at the Greenwich viewpoint, musing upon Wordsworth's words written from a different vantage point two and a quarter centuries ago.
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by a sight so touching in its majesty
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The full force of nature's air conditioning could be felt during the descent to Hawksmoor's church and the Cutty Sark, where the modern day Nail Shop turns out not to be a ships' chandler at all.
The Dog and Bell remains a great pub and we got a big table for Tim G to sip his glass of water and watch us fail to scoff sizeable portions of better than average pub grub, and here we offered the punters the option of a short cut home. Karen, who had done the recce but was in the event not needed as a leader, had decided to avoid the afternoon heat of busy Brixton and take the train from London Bridge but everyone else opted to do the full route, so we parted company with her just outside the Angel pub near Bermondsey Beach and turned south, homeward bound through Southwark Park.
That place, and Bermondsey Park after it, were pleasant enough but it was getting seriously warm for the back street urban maze of Camberwell, then Stockwell, then Brixton. Jacqui was riding behind me at this point and I was reminded of her first and so far only B Ride that day we all set out from Banstead and got half drowned over Box Hill. Then she was shivering from the cold and wet at the Stepping Stones; this day she was putting on extra sun screen at the water stops. But we survived the worst that the afternoon sun could throw at us, and I survived two assassination attempts by an electric biker on Camberwell High Street, and we opted out of the detour to see Brixton Windmill and were soon at our tea stop, Emmi's on Emmanuel Road, where the only tables available outside were in the sun but I had spotted the little room inside which cosily fitted us all. Recces are not all about road works!
From there it's only a five mile downhill saunter over the Tooting commons and through the back streets of Tooting itself before we found ourselves on the Wandle Trail and at the official end in Morden Hall Park. Only 30Km in all, but it was enough; urban riding on such a hot day is disproportionally hard work. We might have been an octet instead of the anticipated Mahlerian orchestra but it made for a friendly and really enjoyable day out.
Thanks are due to Karen, Anna and Roger from the Saturday crowd for offering to lead and for riding the recce, and for Tim G and Karl, both in the middle of planning and executing Wednesday rides, who made several recces and helped get the route to work. Karl, having ridden it three times in a sweltering week, was excused duty on the day.
Still, the diminishing take-up for the Greenwich ride leads me to ponder whether we should give it a sabbatical next year, and plan a different London adventure in its stead. Such thoughts can be put on hold until the winter.
