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Pedals to Pedalos
14 June 2009

Well what a nice day we had... this ride was suggested by Aneeta our local guru on knitting, cooking curry, mending inner tubes and (now we discover) pedaloing.

A good sized group of 12 presented at the Green Bridge with the promise of a fabulous sunny and warm day (mostly right as it turned out). It was good to see quite a few new faces there. We set off southwards to Limehouse and then followed the Shadwell Basin/ornamental canal route through Wapping. With no real beginners or small children in the group, we had decided that we would be OK to cycle across Tower Bridge, and as we turned up onto the approach road were delighted to find all traffic stationary as the bridge was just being raised for a sailing barge to pass underneath. We raced (relatively speaking) up the wrong side of the road to ensure we joined the considerable throng of cyclists waiting to get across first when the bridge was lowered. A very painless crossing.

The next part of the ride was pretty uneventful as we continued along the south bank as far as London Bridge and then swung slightly inland along route 4 around the back of the Tate Modern, eventually emerging at Westminster Bridge. Just after that our route challenges started - Horse Guards road was shut (how could I have forgotten it was the Queen's birthday - very easily obviously) so we diverted up a nicely traffic free Birdcage Walk, only to find huge crowds around Buckingham Palace. Some of the group managed to walk to Constitution Hill, others were turned back by police - but with the aid of a few mobile phone calls we all met up at Hyde Park Corner and then proceeded to the boating lake.

At that point we swapped our pedals for our pedalos, and almost immediately discovered that pedalos are a) fixies and b) not very efficient transport. Later we were also to discover c) they hurt your back! Yes we did have a race - I refuse to name the winners as there was excessive cheating and a dispute over exactly where the finishing line was. Also it is just possible that watermelon is a banned fuel for pedalos!

Back on dry land, we had a relaxed picnic lunch before setting off home. On the return route the area around Buckingham Palace was passable so we cycled down the traffic free Mall, but instead of retracing our outward route decided to press on through the West End and City - "First cycle ride trough the middle of London" certificate awarded to one of our new riders! Back in Limehouse, we just couldn't quite bring ourselves to cycle past Vesuvios and so ended the ride with ice creams at our favourite cafe.

Caroline

Photos by Owen and David W.

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