Thank you for all your support and fabulous donations to Girlguiding, a great charity for girls and young women. Yes they do happen to be my employers but rest assured that your hard-earned money (when it eventually makes its way into my pay packet) will go towards keeping my better half in the manner she's accustomed to. But enough about us, here's a little account of my Nightrider London experience to share with you while I can still remember (it does get harder with the years you know).
Our starting point was Alexandra Palace, which for my friends south of the river is north, that part of the world your compass keeps trying to tell you is where it's all happening. It is also, quite conveniently, 5 minutes from my home (everything up north is quite convenient). Armed with 8 carb gels, three power bars, 1.5 litres of electrolytes, a set of lights, two spare inner tubes, mini tools, a pump, spare batteries, helmet, a very pretty but useless Girlguiding top (no pockets), cash, Oyster, Visa and, err, some tissues, I got to the starting line and, with my fellow honorary Girl Guider Dan, set of with about 30 other riders on the 12.10am wave (they were going off in waves every ten minutes). Swift as Uruk Hai on the scent of hobbits we swooped down the hill from the Palace into the night with a hundred kilometres of prime London ahead of us.
We quickly made our way to Highgate, dismissing the first climb with disdain, and on through Hampstead. Within the first five minutes I'd counted at least five fellow riders with punctures, one broken chain, one poor lass pushing her ride up a hill and one nervous breakdown (probably a poor southern Londoner unable to cope with the sensory overload that is north London). The obligatory sympathetic glances observed, we pushed on and passed Regents Park fairly soon. This was good, we were making quick progress as I'd hoped while still obeying traffic laws and stopping at every red light (a handful of my fellow Nightriders I'm afraid to say weren't as law-abiding, the silly buggers, but the majority did their fellow London cyclists proud). We alighted at Baker Street some 20 minutes after departure (yes, Sherlock Holmes was mentioned by a few riders) and hit the West End, whereupon time stopped.
While the tube may not run 24 hours, central London traffic certainly does. When I first observed the course we would take, I was quite excited at the thought of cycling through the West End by night. What I wasn't prepared for was to find that it was no different to my daily cycling commute to work through the same roads, ie a bloody traffic nightmare and absolutely pants. Only this time with copious amounts of alcohol also involved. And rickshaws. Bloody rickshaws. We crawled our way through Piccadilly, Leicester Square and Covent Garden for what seemed an eternity. When we finally made it across Waterloo Bridge I was ecstatic with relief, maybe we could finally work up a sweat south of the river. But no, not quite yet. A quick whirl to take in the Southbank then back north across the river we went again to take in Parliament, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and Westminster. This little sightseeing extravaganza - in the dark, when you're really having to concentrate hard on the traffic and not the sights - cost me and Dan at least two hours of our lives, and our target time of 4 hours.
Finally - finally! - we crossed yet another bridge back south into Lambeth for what I knew would be a nice, long stretch of hopefully traffic-free riding to the half-way point in Crystal Palace. Btw, the bridge-crossing by night thing was a fun experience the first time, but it seems (warning: spoiler alert) the Nightrider organisers were determined to have us 'experience' every single bridge London could throw at you. By the third bridge the novelty had worn off, by the sixth bridge (yes south Londoners, there's more than one escape route to the north) I was thinking of how excellent that final scene in Bridge on the River Kwai was, you know, the bit where Alec Guiness blows the damn thing up. I do make an exception for Tower Bridge however, because, you know, it's frickin Tower Bridge innit. Plus official Nightrider photographers were present to capture us so we had to look our enthusiastic and glorious best.
Anyway, back to the ride, from Lambeth Bridge onwards was a blessed relief of empty, leafy, streets - and zero party revellers. To be fair to the partying hordes, they were very supportive of our endeavors. In fact, the only abuse we were at the receiving end of came from a bunch of young lads on Boris Bikes as we passed the London Eye. I know, go figure. Let's just call them the Nigel Farage of London cyclists. And to be fair to my South London friends, the best bit of cycling by far during the entire ride occurred through the dreamy, dimly lit avenues of the south, particularly Dulwich, which I am henceforth renaming to Summer Narnia.
We reached the half-way point (which wasn't technically half-way, more like two-fifths-way, but let's not split hairs) and stopped for a quick portaloo break (surprisingly clean and pleasant, but then again it was pitch dark), powerbar and equipment check. We still had hopes of breaking five hours and beating the Daybreak Challenge (making it back before sunrise) so we ignored the lure of the festival atmosphere and pushed on. Unlike the Yanks at the Superbowl, we party at full-time, not half-time. More miles of fabulously empty suburban South London roads were enjoyed, but just don't ask me where the hell we were as it's all still foreign country to me. I did recognise Greenwich Park mind you as we rode on Maze Hill, as I know some fabulous people who live nearby (I know fabulous people everywhere), and it was very pretty in twilight. It was also very alarming as we still had a good two-fifths of the course to go and it was getting brighter. The Daybreak Challenge was slipping through our fingers like (warning: obligatory cycling metaphor ahead) air through a puncture.
Eventually we crossed Tower Bridge - hurrah! Ally Pally here we come! Well, not quite, as I mentioned earlier, there were quite a few bridges to cross. So taking in St Pauls and the Old Bailey back down Blackfriars Bridge we went again to take in a bit of Southwark (used to work there for a rubbish employer so 'meh!', but did have fabulous workmates, so 'yay!'), then up London Bridge (you know, the rubbish one) for one last view of the river. As it happened it was also around this point that some young lasses in a cab, slightly worse for wear obviously, were quite taken with our exploits and started chatting to Dan at the traffic lights (probably chatting him up too but he's too much of a gentleman to tell). As we pulled away I thought we'd seen the last of them but apparently not, as the cab kept with us for a bit then started speeding past, whereupon one of the girls decided to whip her iphone out and film us. Yes, you know where this is going, and I witnessed it all happening in slow motion - she dropped her phone out of the cab windown. As a fellow iphone owner I felt her pain as I heard it smack the pavement. One mobile phone network operator was going to get a teary call in the morning. Dan and I would have happily played the knights in shining armour and retrieved it for her (or what was left of it) on any other occasion but this one. With 40-odd cyclists bearing down on you at you full pelt it just didn't seem like a good idea at the time.
We quickly entered East London and into the cobbled streets of St Katherine's Docks/Wapping and Limehouse. Let me tell you, cobbled streets really are quite picturesque and lovely on two feet, but absolute agony on two wheels. My wheels held out but I can't quite say the same about my spine. A quick detour into and around Canary Wharf was pleasant, if only for the smooth and incredibly well maintained streets (bleedin bankers and their enviable tarmac). Then northwards we headed again through Bow, of which the best I can say about is that we weren't mugged (I guess even muggers need to sleep). Kidding aside, I was surprised by how gentile it had all become since I used to live in the area. I'd heard vicious rumours about this middle-class invasion, but never believed it until now. There wasn't a burnt-out car in sight.
Eighty odd kilometres into it we arrived at the Olympic Park, which was quite fabulous, but also quite distressing as we knew we'd pretty much lost the Daybreak Challenge. Around this time, unbeknownst to me, one particular chap riding for Multiple Sclerosis Society (great charity, rubbish supporters) was being a great source of annoyance to Dan for some terrible cycling manners. He'd apparently been stuck to us like a limpet and drafting along for the last 20-30km without ever having the decency to take a turn at the front. Not the done thing, and I'd hate to think that any of my cycling friends would ever get up to such unethical behaviour. We'd apparently keep dropping him, then when we were dutifully stopping at traffic lights he'd catch up.
Around the time we left the Olympic Park (passing by the gorgeous Velodrome, which I wish they'd opened up to us for a quick turn), there was only about 13km of riding left, so my canine homing instinct kicked in and I put the boosters on. I have to stop at this point just to point out how particularly pleased and proud I was about my fitness levels - training and good preparation does pay off. Needless to say we finally lost the freewheeling scum (who does however support a great cause). A quick whirl through northwest London, so close to home, was mainly memorable for taking us through Stokey and Stamford Hill, scenes of my days of courting my other half when she used to live there (and again because I know some fabulous people who used to live there, then wisely sold up when the going was good).
In what passed for a blink of an eye (because, you know, we were really going fast, not because I was falling asleep) we're on the hill ascent to Alexandra Palace, just a few hundred yards from the finish. I have to admit, none of the other hills up until then had been too much of a challenge, but this one did force me to drop down to my second-lowest gear (SECOND lowest) for the last few metres. We crossed the finish line at about 5.15am, five hours, five minutes and fifty-five seconds after setting off.
Thanks once again for all your lovely support. And if you haven't already, there's still plenty of time to donate to Girlguiding at www.justgiving.com/
Best wishes,
Nightrider M
Btw Ally Pally has a fabulous ice rink if you're into that sort of thing. And the views aren't bad either.
