All day ride to Brighton - Saturday 20th July

Despite the dire weather forecast 3 cyclists left Nonsuch Park on a dry morning, meeting up with Rob and Ruth on their tandem at Banstead. We stopped for elevenses at Tanhurst Farm. By now the sun was breaking through the clouds, and despite a strong south westerly wind we made it to Partridge Green for lunch, sitting outside in the sunshine!!!

We continued our ride to Shoreham. After Steyning we left the road for the new Downs Link cycle track which we found very smooth and wide. On reaching the end of the Downs Link we stopped for a photo call at the new sculpture.

From Shoreham the wind blew us along the seafront to Brighton where we stopped for tea, (no swimming though). The sea was far too rough as seen by the red flag. After tea we all went to the Train station for our journeys home.

Thanks to all who accompanied me.

Don't always believe the weather forecast 😎

Regards Tony

July Beddington Park ride

Torrential rain overnight and intermittent showers this morning were enough to deplete our numbers this afternoon. But Trevor joined us with his 4 week old bike having been encouraged to take up cycling when he acted as support to a charity fund raiser London to Paris cycle ride.

We couldn’t compete with Avenue Verte and Croydon was our destination, not generally twinned with Paris! However, Colin, Ken, Maggie & Paul set out with Trevor through the South London roads. We left Beddington Park by the church and took the paths by the Wandle to Croydon. One driver in a hurry decided to weave between our bicycles and get in front of Colin only for us to be directly behind him at the next two sets of lights. We turned right up to East Croydon and left our smoking, inconsiderate driver to face central Croydon traffic. We passed Croydon Court and crossed to Park Hill Park leaving by the water tower. We then cycled through the quiet roads to Lloyd Park where we stopped briefly to orientate Trevor. It's then across the park, downhill and a short ride to Coombe Wood for tea and cake and a robin flying between the tables and selecting the best crumbs.

We turned left out of Coombe Wood through the undergrowth to descend to Croham Road. Making our way through South Croydon we can't complete a ride without a hill so up Haling Park Road we go. Recovering our breath we cross Purley Way and return to Wallington where we separate to make our way home. We hope to see Trevor again at future rides.

Wimbledon tradition

It was my turn on the second week of Wimbledon to lead the traditional Cyclism ride from Garth Road to the tennis championships.  Our grandsons Rufus and Felix came with Maggie, Stephen, Sue, Tracey, Anna, Roy and Steve W and Daniel joined us having cycled from work in Canary Wharf; eleven in all.

It was a fine evening for a ride and luckily Maggie and I had recced the whole thing on Friday, because since the route was created Cannon Hill Common has become entirely no cycling.  It was no problem to carry on up Cannon Hill Lane to the footpath after the river bridge, but best practised beforehand!

I reckon The Downs is probably the steepest route up Wimbledon Hill, but that is the tradition, so we did it and the ride to the windmill was pleasant across a dry common sprinkled with after-work runners.  The conveniences at the cafe up there are just what they say; open when the cafe was closed!  Down Somerset Road to the tennis, we arrived just in time to catch the big crowd going home after one of the fourth round matches and had to push our bikes up Church Road, not because it was steep but because it was a traffic jam with hundreds of tired spectators on foot making it impossible to mount.

The traditional view of the gleaming spires of Croydon from Denmark Road (earth has not anything to show more fair!) and a pleasant, mainly downhill cycle home.  34 Km door to door at a pleasant summers evening 14 kph. 

Congratulations, Shirley

Shirley Quemby has been chosen by Cycling UK to be on their 100 Women in Cycling list 2019 for actively encouraging and assisting people to cycle for over 50 years.  For those who would like to read a little more, the Cycling UK article on her is at: 

 https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/shirley-quemby 

Shirley Quemby

Bikefurcation

Roger, Martina & Maggie at Claudio Funari's Community Garden on the Wandle

For the first time in the history of the Beddington Beginners we ran two rides out of Beddington Park on Saturday.

We had a newcomer, Martina, from Bologna and then Durban, who is determined to learn to ride a bike.  She had only been practising in the park until she answered our leaflet and came to see if we could make Maggie’s old bike fit her on the Friday, so Maggie and Colin took her on the Wandle Path towards Morden Hall Park, which has only short stretches of road.  Roger joined them because he could not face the prospect of riding to Banstead, one of his least favourites.

Ken, who lives near Morden Hall Park, and the other electric bikers who refuse to offer us the prospect of entertainment by falling into the river off the narrow path, wanted to go somewhere else, so we did the traditional thing and weighed up the alternatives until the drizzle started, then set off.  I led Ken, Roy, Anna, Ray and Sharon up Demesne Road and through the back streets to Wallington Sainsbury’s, where the drizzle increased to scale two and we changed under the tree cover into our wet weather gear before continuing South of Stafford Road and then across and West of Woodcote Road to Dingwall Road.  Ray left us to go home; whether because of the rain or the beginners’ pace he was too polite to say.  It meant that only Sharon and I noticed the gentle but persistent incline, since the other three were on electrically powered machines.

The drizzle was light and of the refreshing variety as we went down the hill to Woodmansterne Road and then up the Warren and Pine Walk East, the first section of which is probably the steepest of our Sutton hills.  From there it is a brief respite past the Royal Marsden and then a longer climb up Sutton Lane past the prisons, ending with the awkward and fairly steep and busy roundabout across Croydon Lane.  Only one or two more of those carefully engineered London Borough of Sutton drain-potholes to avoid, including the Borough Engineer’s piece de resistance, the one on the apex of the blind bend where the road is at its narrowest, until tea at Pistachio’s, where I took advantage of having less raingear than anybody else except Sharon and moved in early for the last piece of lemon drizzle cake.  There have to be some privileges of leadership.

The rain had stopped when we re-emerged for what, in the days before potholes, was my favourite local stretch, the almost flat, lightly used Woodmansterne Lane along the tops to the Woodman.  Down the steep Carshalton Road, avoiding the metal drain covers strategically placed a couple of yards out from the gutter, re-crossing Croydon lane into Oaks Park where Anna and Roy left the three of us to cross the smallholdings and come back into Wallington on that enjoyable cruise downhill on Boundary Road.  At home the other group returned, Martina rightly pleased with herself for having done something like ten miles on her maiden voyage.

A short ride in the rain; 21.2 Km door to door at 10.6 K/h, but with 239m of ascent it afforded me a bit of sneaky practice for the TriVets on Wednesday and Sharon enjoyed the hills.  For the others, of course, hill practice was a mere flick of the switch.

Hazards on le Col du Sandown; the longer ride on 1st June

On a beautiful Saturday we took Maggie’s cousin Pip, hardly unpacked from her twenty four hour flight from the Land of the Long White Cloud, to Nonsuch.  The only obstacles to a splendid day’s riding were a deceptively stiff breeze and a blank space on the rides list for the longer ride.  The numbers clearly called for a split, so with Epsom Downs and anywhere near it ruled out because of  Derby Day, we rejected Caterham on the Hill for the flatter ride to Garson’s Farm, largely to accommodate Rob and Ruth, whose tandem was built by Boeing and exhibiting symptoms of failure.

Thus while Maggie and the jet-lagged Pip on a borrowed bike stayed to ride with Carolyn, who led the shorter ride as per the schedule along the Wandle, Nigel volunteered to lead us to (ever so slightly) more exotic places.  Godfrey rode tail gunner.  Steve, Yasmin, Brian, Ray and Noel joined me and the tandem and the ten of us set out.  Noel had been riding innocently through Merton last week when he was set upon by the group of passing Sou’Westers who made him an offer he could not refuse and here he was again.  We must press gang more.

Either through design or indecision, Nigel led us the zig-zag route out through familiar landmarks; the bridge under the railway at Stoneleigh where the lady of a certain age has been known to enforce the no cycling sign with a swing of her bag; up what in Stravaspeak is the Seaforth Climb to cross under the A3 near Tolworth.  Our only adventure on the way arose because the tandem, like the pretender to the mayorship of Peckham, was sporting a dodgy chain, but when we negotiated the Col du Ditton descent and crossed the Hampton Court Road we could pretend we were having a little adventure away from the peaceful and familiar byways of the Shire. 

The Col du Sandown was freshly coated with gravel; piles of the stuff which might be irrelevant to the well-heeled occupants of a Chelsea Tractor but were anything but to a cyclist, and clouds of granite dust.  Zinging through the Lammas Lane downhill and the Garsons Sprint to the eponymous garden centre where the bike parking makes it difficult to secure the wheels as well as the frames; one’s security is in knowing that people thereabouts would not know how to remove a quick release wheel, but would have to send a man to do it for them.

At tea a friendly chap introduced himself as a former rider with the South West London Club, based at Tolworth, but we never found out his name and, uninformed, we made our way back home, the Lammas Lane climb, the Col du Claygate, Red Lane, the Woodstock Lane dash.  On Hook Lane the crowds had come out to see us (no kidding!) as if we were Le Tour.  What they were there for, we did not know.  After Cox Lane, Rob and Ruth paid the tandem toll for having chosen the flatter route, the gates getting increasingly difficult until we all had to lift the machine high above our heads like the natives in Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo manhandling the boat through the Amazon forest.

Then it was the Hogsmill riverside and out of the Surrey marchlands to the Ewell by-pass at Stoneleigh and double jeopardy of that eccentric lady at the railway bridge.  After the much travelled Nonsuch Park going East we said our goodbyes and made for home, leaving me alone to break my personal best on the Westmead Road Sprint.

In all, for me, 52km door to door, 320m climbing and an average of 14.8km/h, which is quite nifty for a Beginners ride.  Thanks, Nigel.

Old Friends and new; Beddington Park Beginners ride to the Rookery, 18 May 2019

Saturday was one of those days you could not be sure of the weather; rain covers or not? Extra layer or not?  Eight of us met for the Beddington Park Ride and though a few familiar faces were missing, like Sharon and Ken, we had a rider new to the club, Stephen.

With no real beginners on the ride we elected to go for a familiar ride up to Streatham Common.

We have all experienced being led through unfamiliar streets, discovering new places we did not know and suddenly emerging and thinking “so THAT’S where we are”, and it is fun to take a new member like Stephen through it.

We took him past Beddington Church and Waddon Ponds, through Waddon Park and the slightly less pleasant bit negotiating West Croydon, through the back streets of Thornton Heath, past St Andrew’s church and the bowling club towards Norbury to cross the London to Brighton railway at Manor Farm Road.  Up the narrow path by Norbury Manor College to Green Lane.

Then for most it was down Green Lane a little and up Gibson’s Hill (one show-off chose to ride up Norbury Hill and back down Covington Way).  The rendezvous was at the foot of the upper part of Gibson’s Hill, which is a bit of a challenge no matter how you look at it; the first part a rough, stony, unmetalled private road on an incline and the second part a narrow tarmac path short (300 yards?) but as steep as almost anything in the Surrey Hills.

The reward is the panoramic view of Croydon and the Shirley Hills from Norwood Grove, which is mentioned in one of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and which was once owned by one of the founders of the P&O shipping line.  The blue plaque tells you that Mr Nettlefold (of Guest, Keen and Nettlefold) also made it his home in between running steelworks and making the fixings to screw a nation together.

From there it is only a short roller coaster through the woods to coffee and cake at the Rookery Café, where Ray could take Stephen to see The Rookery itself, charming and quaint Victorian gardens and rockery (once a part of the Norwood Grove estate), while the rest of us got on with sampling the impressive array of cakes.

The return trip was downhill in more ways than one, introducing Ray and Stephen to the less than quaint glass, graffiti and litter under the railway bridge in Norbury, to the Saturday driving of all those folks in such a hurry to get back to their homes in suburbia that they overtake on the wrong side of the bollards and suddenly slow to below cycling speed to negotiate the sleeping policemen.  Through Streatham Vale across Northborough Road, where Derek Bentley once lived.  He was infamously hanged at the age of 19 for the murder in Croydon that his accomplice, too young to be hanged, actually committed.  A dark tale from South London's Hobbiton.

From there we went to Mitcham Common, which we crossed on the lane where an Asian man was taking photographs of what we think of as weeds but what in fact are quite delicate blue flowers and where was strolling a large, handsome fox; exactly the same one, I’ll wager, as met me last Saturday around that time in the same spot as I made my way back from the all day Greenwich ride.  Perhaps we’re striking up a relationship, Foxy and I.

The path across Hackbridge Marshes is closed again so we enjoyed a further experience in working class social history, through the architectural and cultural desert that is the Beddington Lane industrial estate on a Saturday afternoon.  I showed Colin the new way through Asda Car Park and the gap in the fence to the car park next door, thus avoiding much of cycle-unfriendly Beddington Lane before the labyrinthine journey past the filling station into the “back door” of Beddington Park, a convoluted route negotiable only with Colin as your guide or if you left a ball of string to mark it on your way out.  A pleasant way to spend the hours before the Cup Final; and the rain held off and the sun blessed us occasionally.

Paul and Maggie, Roger, Anna and Roy are the riders I have not mentioned yet, and we very much hope Stephen comes again.