That was another really enjoyable Fridays' ride. A big thanks to
@Flying Dodo for leading and organising, and for all the preparation work that goes on to make the ride run so smoothly on the night. OK, so both of the food stops were memorable for the wrong reasons, but that is all part of the rich tapestry of experiences that are the FNRttC, and we will laugh in years to come. The Grain and Hop store gets first prizes for location and bike parking, but could be improved if they really did do breakfasts rather than just the promise of breakfast.
I made quite a long day out of it in all. I thought it would be a nice idea to ride down from home, near Cambridge, to London in the daylight, and so it was, but with night falling quite early now it meant setting out at 3.30 on Friday, and I then hit rush-hour traffic from Enfield onwards. It also left me with a lot of time to kill, which I split between a Turkish restaurant in Tottenham (v. good food), seeing the lights from Primrose Hill, and loitering round Trafalgar Square watching a busking band, before heading to Victoria to wait for others at around 10 o'clock. I'm starting to think that riding down before the ride may be more of a summer thing.
The ride itself went very smoothly, and it seemed like no time from the partying hordes of Shoreditch to the dark glades of Epping Forest, and then the real darkness of the lanes in deepest Essex. There was the finest drizzle, no more, and although we missed any moonlight or stars, conversely the cloud cover kept the temperatures mild, and only on exiting McD at Stansted at 6am did the cold bite very much. I glanced wistfully to my left as we approached the Sawston roundabout, as we passed only about a mile from my bed, but the lure of breakfast(!) spurred me on. I took a few people on a lightning mini-tour of central Cambridge while we waited for the breakfast venue to open, and then hung around to enjoy the banter over beer and coffee, with or without food.
My ride wasn't quite over - I set off for home and was intercepted by Mrs rjh and my father en route and ended up shopping and dogwalking before finally getting back at 2.30 pm, just 23 hours after starting.
My pictures weren't great, but here is a taste of them