Up the Lea Valley to Waltham Abbey
5 February 2005
When I saw the details of the group ride along the River Lee to Waltham Abbey set for Saturday 5th February, my heart sank: another nice ride I'd have to miss because of w-o-r-k. The route was one that I had only recently been introduced to - part of the National Cycling Network route number 1 - having come up to Victoria Park from Edmonton the Sunday before with the Edmonton Cycling Club. So imagine my cheer the day before the ride when my scheduled hours at work for the Saturday 5th February went up. As part of an experiment, my supervisor wanted to try a new split-shift pattern and I wasn't due at work till 3.30. A meant-to-be ride to Waltham Abbey beckoned, I fancied cramming it in.
Meeting point for the ride was at the top of the Green Bridge at Mile End Park for 10 o'clock and I was early (impressive for me). As I heaved my bike up the steps to the bridge, another rider was already waiting and acknowledging me with a wave. Ah, Owen. Only three more paces on, I found myself looking hard. Owen seemed to have shrunk.
As I wheeled my bike further on it was evident the waving rider was not Owen at all. In fact, the rider looked a little more familiar - somebody I'd first met and got to know following one of Keith's rides to the Ace Café last August. The next three paces confirmed it: it was good old Scot, ever the champ of the starry-eyed novice rider, the seasoned CTC-er taking time out to try new routes. And with him of course, none other than his loyal and trusty Thorn Nomad with her double footed stand and handful of frogs (plastic).
We were joined shortly after by Owen, organiser of the ride for Tower Hamlets Wheelers. I hadn't seen Owen since I first tagged onto some Tower Hamlets Wheelers rides last August. He was still the same size (not shrunk in the slightest bit). His hair though was considerably longer - maybe uncut since I last saw him - and prevented from flying majestically in the sunny morning breeze by his Lapland hat and pigtail tassel.
The rest of the Tower Hamlets Wheelers followed, whom I'd not met before. Owen did the introductions: Janice, sporting a red bandana; then her German friend and work colleague Anita, slightly delayed by sleep and breakfast; and then Oscar and his Russian wife Lena, coming all the way from Chatham and also delayed, having had to negotiate the small matter of one of their bike's front wheels, which they'd initially forgotten to pack in their car and had had to go back for.
And so we were ready to go, the seven of us - the Magnificent Seven on our exploratory mission. The River Lee path to Waltham Abbey would be flat the whole way, Owen said. My sort of ride. We were due to join up with the Waltham Forest Cycling Campaign and a few Sustrans Rangers at Springfield Marina.
We set off from the Green Bridge, making our way towards Hackney Marshes with its huge expanse of green fields and football pitches. Half an hour from the hustle and bustle of London's congested streets and the tranquil setting of the River Lee canal, with its bright boats and overlooked by newly built apartments and houses, couldn't have contrasted more. How different it would be, Janice mused (while pointing out her impartiality), if London got the 2012 Olympic bid.
Further on, further development was evidently underway. Janice, used to jogging along the route, observed newly laid tarmac instead of the usual muddy path. Little three-foot black posts dividing the different paths were so new, the polythene coverings had still not been taken off. Old derelict brick houses were being gently bulldozed.
When we arrived at Springfield Marina, we were greeted by Chris of Sustrans, eagerly dishing out leaflets about the River Lee path to the Docks. I held my hand out for one. Chris didn't see it. "Meet my wife", he said eagerly, and we were introduced to his delightful wife Yvonne. Queuing up at Springfield Marina's riverside café for refreshments a few minutes later, I turned to Janice: "Chris looks familiar". "Hmm," she agreed politely. "Maybe it's his beard that gives that familiar look", I pondered.
Refreshments taken, we set off for Waltham Abbey with another 12 riders from Sustrans and the Waltham Forest CC - 19 of us in all. Past Stonebridge Lock and the odd small stone sculpture, we stopped briefly for Chris to take photos and wait for another rider who needed to sort out her tyres. Chris sounded familiar too: the rich lecturer's projection. As he amiably chatted with another rider, I tentatively made towards him. "Are you a lecturer?" I asked him. His eyes widened with surprise. "Retired five years ago", he replied. "With Middlesex University?" I probed further. "Yes." "I was your student!" I exclaimed. Chris let out a jolly laugh and slapped me on the back.
We passed Picketts Lock, went through Ponders End, over a bumpy path, and then came off the towpath for a shortcut to Waltham Abbey through a newly built-up residential area. As Chris remarked on a new bridge that could only have been about two days old, he inquired about my student days under his lectureship. Nearly nine years ago I informed him, when I was doing a diploma. "You failed me!" I recalled. "Oh joy", he must have thought, "Another under-achieving student to torment me in retirement...".
We arrived at Waltham Abbey, and made our way through the grounds. The tiny Philpott's Tea Room, with its tables outside, looked appealing. Its manageress, a middle-aged lady blessed with a high-shrill voice, stepped outside and watched all 19 of us descend. "How many?" she asked, with tense concern.
A few of us entered her quaint little tea room, Anita, Janice, Scot and myself at one cosy little round table. As we all settled ourselves, a chair was dragged from one table to another for a rider to sit with fellow riders. The manageress was on her toes: "Can you please NOT DO that! It breaches health and safety!" And then she disappeared. There was a stunned silence for a few moments, some heads lowered to suppress embarrassed giggles. "She's right", murmured one, in a bid to be reasonable. "Does she want us here?" pondered another.
Another rider entered the tearoom and unwittingly dragged a chair to join another table of fellow riders. The manageress appeared from nowhere, near hysterical: "I SAID CAN YOU PLEASE NOT DO THAT! IT BLOCKS OUR WAY WHEN WE BRING THE FOOD!!!" Unimpressed, the lady Waltham Forest rider with the pink bike left with a stiff "bye bye". "BYE BYE!" countered the manageress with a shriek.
On our table, rider eyed fellow rider searchingly.
"Well... She could have been a bit more diplomatic".
"A bit over the top".
"In favour of supporting our sisterhood..." And our little round table was vacated in a twinkle.
At the Crown Pub round the corner we joined a Waltham Forest CC rider at a table, beside a piano and a darts player in the middle of his game. Chairs were testily dragged left, right and centre, and when two more Waltham Forest riders joined us, chairs were dragged again. We soon warmed into our conversations: Queen Eleanor's links with Waltham Abbey, crisps, the good old days of British Rail and the shame of the rail system now, allotments in Broxbourne, the Brompton gears... How everyone in the East End seemed to know the Krays. "I know the Krays", a voice called out. Heads turned. It was the darts player, who had perched himself on the stool beside the piano and was intently listening in on our conversation. A momentary cause for concern: he knew the Krays, he had these menacing darts... and Janice had inadvertently sat herself in the chair he'd been sitting in.
The darts player proved harmless. Unlucky for some of us though, a big order at the pub meant there was an incredibly long wait for food. "Do you suppose the lady from the tearoom phoned up and told the staff here not to serve us?" suggested Janice suspiciously. But lunches finally arrived.
A slight change of plan followed lunch: we opted for popping into the National Bittern Watchpoint at Fishers Green about two miles away, a refuge for birds. At the red traffic lights by the Royal Gunpowder Mills we waited patiently to turn right. And waited. And waited... Until it made sense that with a big group of riders, we may as well make our way across the road past the waiting traffic. As we flocked past Scot, still patiently waiting at the red light, he eyed us with a disapproving shake of the head. "Does nobody read the Highway Code?"
The National Bittern Watchpoint was a quietly peaceful place to stop off at. Not too clued up on birds, my untrained eye peered into the reeds and could only make out ducks. A Waltham Forest Wheeler, a German whose bike chain frequently kept coming off, pulled out a small wheel flip chart of bird pictures: bittern, cormorants, magpies, woodpeckers, red, green... The bittern is camouflaged in the reeds, he said. I peered into the reeds again and could still only see ducks.
Time to go home. It was clouding over now but the rain had held off. We left the National Bittern Watchpoint, back through Ponders End, over the bumpety path, past Picketts Lock... Approaching Springfield Marina, somebody had spotted something: "A heron!" My eyes cast around for needles. Scot had already laid a bet that somebody would get a puncture on the ride, so there was extra reason for vigilance. "A her-on!" exclaimed the Brompton rider beside me a few seconds later, as we rode past a bird with a long neck... Ah, so that's what a heron looked like.
We parted with the Sustrans and Waltham Forest riders at Springfield Marina. The rain had stayed away and it had been a pleasant ride. I watched Chris's wife bid goodbye in Russian to Oscar's wife Lena before taking leave with the rest of her group. And then it was just the Magnificent Seven left. We switched on our bike lights and made our way back to Mile End Park as darkness descended.
Did I make it back to work for 3.30? Uh-uh. But did I manage to acquaint myself with yet another pleasurable, gentle ride away from London's busy traffic that Saturday afternoon, past parks, locks and boats along the canal? I'll refrain from gloating in case I get found out at work.
Riza
Fantastic ride on Saturday up the Lea Valley. Seven of us met on the Green Bridge - we had a short wait for Oscar while he nipped round to Gary's to borrow a spare wheel as he'd forgotten his! (he had driven up from Kent before you ask) - a nice comical start to the day ;-)
We pedalled up to Springfield Cafe, getting frustrated as usual by the barriers on the Hertford Union Canal but marvelling at the newly laid tarmac and barrier free stretch of towpath from Carpenters Road to Hackney Marshes. No more weaving through the undergrowth!
At the cafe we met up with another 12 riders with affiliations to Sustrans and/or the Waltham Forest Cycling Campaign. After coffee and bacon sarnies were rushed down our sizeable group set off north.
As advertised, this was ride was leisurely - sooo relaxing :-) The Sustrans Rangers on the ride passed on local info and took us on a couple of diversions notably round the back of Enfield Island Village that brought us out at Waltham Abbey. Time for lunch. Some braved the abrasive owner of the cafe next to the abbey (though the grub was fine) while others headed for the pub.
Before heading back south, we ventured a couple of miles further north through the Lee Valley Country Park to Fishers Green and a quick peek out across the lakes from within the bittern hide (no bitterns were spotted).
So then it was time to head back now into a bit of a headwind. No matter we were still taking it leisurely-like. We took another diversion, this time round the eastern side of Banbury Reservoir negotiating one set of outrageous barriers - hopefully the Rangers reporting on the fact that only a quarter of us could get our bikes through them without removing panniers etc. will be the start to getting them removed.
Back at the Springfield Cafe, the Wheelers gang said our goodbyes and thanks to our friendly ride companions then trundled the last few miles back home.
I reckon we'll be joining up with this lot again as they sure put on a relaxing ride :-) It was also good to see/hear about the different route options and improvements that the Sustrans rangers have achieved and are working on. More impressive work from the world of cycling volunteers.
Owen
|
