As I left the house at 6:50am I thought, "This is rather early!" I had seen the note I left for myself to get the Chocolate Frostie Cake out of the freezer so stuffed that into my panniers as I set off on the lovely 3.5 mile journey to Manningtree station before a few moments awaiting the 7:18 train.
I got on no problems, stowing my trike in the guard's van, and whizzed off towards Liverpool Street. The Advance ticket was £8 which was rather a bargain.
I arrived at Liverpool Street and stood in the centre of the concourse until Stevevw found me. He slung his bike over his shoulder and then lifted my trike with the other hand whilst I carried the front of it and we ascended the staircase. We found User1314 at the top and he led us towards the Tower of London.
We were almost the first to arrive at the salad bar, discovering that Delthebike was already there. He had cycled from Southend this morning. Alina (who I had met last week on a ride) appeared next, then other people turned up until we had the full complement for the day.
We set off through glass-strewn and potholey streets, stopping every five metres for traffic lights. There are a lot of those in London! I had no idea where I was as my London knowledge is poor and I spent most of the time trying to sell the benefits of my Trice's new high-vis skirt to Delthebike, who seemed to believe that my stitching wasn't utterly perfect on it. The cad!
Soon we left the centre of London behind, stopping for a loo break for some of our number whilst the rest of us ate User1314's digestive biscuits. Then onward again, heading roughly east towards the delights of Essex.
It's at this point that I have to mention what a stonking ride leader Topcat1 is. He kept the group together the whole time, we were all confident that we wouldn't get lost and that he wouldn't let the group spread too far apart. This doesn't always happen on rides and I very much appreciated that this ride was better controlled. Well done Dave!
The first proper stop for drink/food was to be at Rainham Marshes. As we made our way to a landfill site it was hard to see where the nice bit would be... especially when we rounded a corner to find a gaggle of cyclists stopped on the road, with Topcat1 and Stevevw lying immobile in a tangle of bikes. An accident had occurred and it was soon apparent that Topcat1 not only had a puncture but also had a broken spoke and a damaged wheel. Terminally damaged.
We all hovered in the road for a bit and then decided to repair to the grass verge for safety, whereupon people tried to fix Topcat1's wheels whilst the rest of us passed around various food items (the first appearance of my chocolate frosties cake) and sorted out Alina's too-high saddle for her.
But Topcat1's wheel was seriously unwell. Sig to the rescue, she called her husband to come and pick up Topcat1 and take him to a bike shop to get a replacement wheel. The rest of us carried on by bike whilst Topcat1 walked forlornly behind us, awaiting his rescuer.
Now we were off the road and onto a cycle path that goes alongside the Thames at Rainham. There was a fascinating bit of wire/metal sculpture just past the rather awkward gate; I think the gate was meant to be bike-friendly but it wasn't trike-friendly and my flagpole got bent again.
Photo courtesy of Delthebike!
The path was very nice so I decided to tempt Delthebike to swap bikes with me again. This is always a laugh as (a) I can't go round corners on his bike, and (
I can't use the brakes on his bike. Our group having had one crash today I decided I would like to avoid that if possible but the group soon pulled ahead so the only risk was me going into a ditch/the Thames.
This is one of Del's photos – because that's my heifer's backside in the shot and I don't have unpainted toenails:
My plan to swap bikes was a cunning one as we started to come across various metal gates which were JUST wide enough for the trike, if Del wiggled its wheels and ignored the scraping of the mirrors on the metal poles of the gates. I could just about get through on his Galaxy, using my shoulder to aid balance as I wobbled through clipped in to his very-reluctant-to-let-me-unclip SPD pedals.
We were soon on our own, pootling around at a sedate pace as I can't change gear on Del's bike and he's too much of a gentleman to leave me behind, plus his legs are a bit short for my trike so he was hunched forward in the seat. There was no sign of the RSPB Tea Room which we were expecting, and then the gates became just a bit narrower so we had to lift the trike over them. This entailed taking off the flag and panniers to help us along.
We then got to a bit of road with speed bumps at which point my trike displayed a new trick, which was to make the top of the flag fly off every time Del went over a bump. At one flag-reattaching session he noticed that my left hand front tyre had a significant bald spot - it was down to the canvas/rubber/marathon smartguard thingie!
And then we rounded a corner and were back to the car park with the irritating bike gate and the strange metal sculpture in the water... argh! We were clearly well and truly lost! Del pointed out that the only mobile phone number he had for the party was mine; fortunately I have a brace of CycleChatters' numbers and located Sig's. She said she'd come and rescue us. I then took the opportunity of reading two messages on the phone from Simon Legg/Dellzeqq who was cycling to Southend with his wife. He thought we'd be catching him up soon – he was at Stanford-le-Hope in his latest message, so he was way ahead of us – and we knew we were still awaiting repair of Topcat1's bike.
...TO BE CONTINUED...
Will they be waving miniature union jacks?
and there was a pretty good wheel swapping lesson from TC1.
