I just rode the Dunwich Dynamo, the annual 120-mile mass night bike ride from London to the Suffolk coast, which took place on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Here’s how it all unfolded… Saturday 7.30pm Arrive at the Pub on the Park, London Fields, Hackney. The building appears to float in sea of cyclists. Perhaps…
Category: Other
Lee Valley: Britain’s lowest-headroom underpass?
Is this the lowest-headroom cycle bridge in Britain*? It’s on National Cycle Route 1 following the Lee Valley north, in Walthamstow marshes. The cycle path ducks under a railway bridge at Coppermill Lane and leaves you just five feet of headroom, or 152cm – that’s about the minimum required width for a cycle lane. (The…
Gloucester: What a bore (the Severn’s)
It was the year’s only five-star Severn Bore today, a remarkable natural phenomenon that’s ideally visited by bike. So I did, all in the name of route research. The bore is a tsunami-like wave caused by particularly high incoming tides being funnelled up the narrows just south of Gloucester. Like a 168 bus overtaking you…
Quirky London 22: George Inn
Where is it? One of the quirkiest, and best, pubs to cycle to in London is the George Inn in Southwark, just south of London Bridge. What’s quirky about it? The George is just about the city’s only surviving coaching inn, and only one with surviving galleries: the capital’s pubs were virtually all refurbished from…
Quirky London 21: A bit of Cambridge
Where is it? Ely Place (right), parallel to Hatton Garden off Holborn. What’s quirky about it? This immediate area is an exclave of Cambridgeshire in London, technically part of the Diocese of Ely. Exclaves are fascinating – Gibraltar, that bit of Russia round Kaliningrad, the Old Soke of Peterborough, and this. Down Ely Court, a…
Quirky London 20: The centre is a horse’s bum
Where is it? Trafalgar Square, at the top of Whitehall, at the statue of Charles I, just under his horse’s bum. What’s quirky about it? It’s London’s very centre: the point to which a ‘distance to London’, notionally, is measured. It’s the origin of the national roadmap; England’s kilometre-zero. The point used to be marked…
Quirky London 19: Follow a ley line
Where is it? Trafalgar Square, Strand, and ultimately to Arnold Circus. What’s quirky about it? It’s Strand Ley, one of the many lines of mystical forces across London and Britain identified by Alfred Watkins. He noticed that whenever there were two points of great, ancient spiritual significance – Glastonbury Tor, say, or Lord’s – they…
Quirky London 18: DIY Skyride
Where is it? Constitution Hill and The Mall, by Buckingham Palace. What’s quirky about it? Every Sunday, these two grand thoroughfares are closed to traffic. So, if you enjoyed the London Skyride last year, you can recreate it without the 65,000 pesky people on bikes getting in your way, or the marshals telling you not…
Quirky London 17: The Old Kent Road tank
Where is it?Between Page’s Walk and Mandela Way, off the northern end of Old Kent Road, on a triangular patch of grass. What’s quirky about it? It’s a real T-34 tank. Part of the fleet used to crush rebellion in Prague in 1968, it was bought and installed by a local property developer in frustration…
Quirky London 16: The Camberwell Submarine
Where is it? Akerman Rd, between Myatts Fields and Mostyn Gardens, Camberwell. What’s quirky about it? It’s just the protrusion into our universe of a boiler room thing below the road, but it looks just like a submarine. They should paint it seakelp green, and put a periscope on it. Actually, inside it looks pretty…