15 May 2013

Last night’s ride incorporated a rehearsal for the forthcoming Tour de Penge (this Sunday). We met at Bromley South as usual and then quickly made our way to SE20 Cycles in Penge High Street to meet with Jonathon and the Penge crew.

By the time we set off from Penge it was probably gone 8pm so we were always playing catch up.

The Tour de Penge this year will start at Penge Recreation Ground rather than Royston Road Playing field as in previous years. From the Rec. we will head out onto Penge High Street with police outriders, and make our way to Cator Park where we will dissolve into smaller groups for the ride.

Anyway we made our way to the start point and checked the route to CatorPark which seemed fine and then started the ride to Greenwich. This was mainly a risk assessment.

Making our way along the narrow footpath past Cator Park School we emerged by the sewage works in Kangley Bridge Road and here we found an articulated lorry belching acrid smoke from behind the cab. We stopped to investigate and immediately fearing a fire banged on the cab to rouse anyone inside. There was no response and to the delight of the ladies I began to dial 999 to call the brigades’ finest. I was about to press the call button on my phone when a rather sleepy and sheepish head appeared from within the vehicle explaining that it was a diesel stove system inside the cab and all was in fact well. The girls were immediately disappointed as they realised that Hugh, Pugh, Barney and Co were to be stood down and there would be no testosterone laced entertainment from the LFBs finest.

Excitement over, we pressed slowly onwards. There are two significant new problems on our route for Sunday; Vicars Hill at the junction with Ladywell Road is closed by roadworks and little further on the cycle lane in Thurston Road in Lewisham is also closed for more roadwork’s.

Yvonne had already warned us about the Vicars Hill situation as it had disrupted her Breeze Ride the other day. On that occasion Yvonne had enquired of the workmen who had confirmed that the situation would in fact be worse on Sunday when not only would the road be closed but the pavements would be dug up too.

We also found although it went largely unremarked that Norway Street in Deptford has become one way in the opposite direction so this will be another little challenge.

We reached the  Cutty Sark just after 9 pm and here we split from the Penge crew so we could head off to the Rye for the refreshments element of our wander.

We were quite cold by now so were quite glad to step up the pace a bit. John had worked out an excellent route from Greenwich to Peckham, unfortunately he took us on a different one which went over Telegraph Hill. This resulted in some furious moaning from…. Well I expect you’ve guessed.

At the Rye we had a table reserved and found Mel, Paul and Steve awaiting us, John was immediately subjected to some entirely unwarranted leg pulling about his navigation skills; it was even suggested completely unfairly in my view that he had got lost!!

More importantly it was here we realised we had lost someone; Sticky Bunn what can we say; absolutely unforgivable  sincere apologies. Sticky had emailed to let us know he had suffered a puncture and when no-one stopped he had completed the repair and turned for home. This could have happened to a first timer which would have been even more serious. We have not done well here.

Anyway once everyone had settled down and given John the chance to give a perfectly acceptable explanation of his route to the pub we had a very pleasant time chatting together about all things cycling.

Enquiries were made with the staff about whether it will be OK to drop in again after our forthcoming curry ride. They confirmed that they would be pleased to see us but they didn’t expect to have any live music.

We made our way back to Catford via the Brockley Jack where I split away to go down the Waterlink Way.

The total distance for this ride was about 20 miles. See you on Sunday in Penge or at the Market on the Green in Beckenham on Saturday!!