Another loop around Hyde Park

For day 6 of 30 days of biking I went for a short morning ride up to Hyde Park. It's my standard short ride and I took it at a fairly leisurely pace. It's a decent route and can be ridden almost entirely off of the busy roads if I choose. I even stopped outside Buckingham Palace to take a quick snap of the bike in the sunshine.

 Here is the route as plotted with my GPS app -

The only issue is that my knee isn't feeling 100% so I might stop riding the bike daily and revert to my normal routine of having a few rest days each week. I'll see how it feels tomorrow and take it from there.

10.7km
40 minutes

New 1km personal best

30 days of biking - day 5.

I'm holding back on the total time/mileage I ride each day because this is the first time I've ever tried to maintain a cycling streak and I want to do my best to avoid picking up any niggles.

I had quite a good traffic-light free run between Vauxhall Bridge and Lupus Street so I put in a little more effort and logged my fastest ever 1km cycling split (1.51).

12.6km
40 minutes

With added sleet (day 4 of 30dob)

I was close to cancelling today's ride. It was cold and windy again, but today there was also some snow/sleet coming down. After 15 minutes of pondering I finally just got changed and went out with the bike.

I headed west along the Thames and picked up the super cycle lane (CS8) but only as far as Pimlico. I spent the next 20 minutes or so zipping around the back streets before heading back towards Whitehall.

I was blown around in all directions and on a few occasions was caught by a nasty side wind that I thought might just lift me off the ground and slam me into parked cars.

12.4km
42 minutes

If only it wasn't so windy

So. It's really windy out there. I think I may have actually picked up a tail wind at one point but it didn't last long and was I soon out of my seat furiously trying to maintain some kind of forward motion.

Today was just a slight variation on yesterday's route. I took the anti-clockwise route around Hyde Park but threw in a little extra by coming back on myself along the serpentine.

No incidents at all today, which can only be a good thing.

My GPS app says that I rode 12.64km and was riding for 44 minutes. If it wasn't so windy I would have stayed out for longer, then again considering I have to do this for 30 consecutive days it's probably wise to keep my midweek rides fairly short and not get carried away (I'll save that for the weekend)!

12.6km
44 minutes

30 days of biking - Day 2

Day 2 of 30 days of biking was just a short after-work outing up to and around Hyde Park. This is one of my staple routes during the week but I do more laps of the park if I'm after a longer workout.

The main things to report were -

• It was windy (again)
• The sun was out
• There were quite a few pedestrians walking out into the road without looking (again)

So here's the route from my GPS readings from my phone..

10.6km
40 minutes of cycling

Look Mum No Hands

For the official start of 30 days of biking I thought it would be nice to do something involving the family but where I could also complete day one of the challenge. So we decided to go for lunch at Look Mum No Hands - the cycling workshop and cafe on Old Street, in the City of London. The wife and toddler took the tube while I jumped on the bike and met them at Barbican station.

There are loads of cycle racks dotted around the immediate vicinity of the cafe, plus they have a bike rack in their courtyard. If upon arrival you realise that you haven't brought a lock for your bike you can hire one for the duration of your visit.

So we sat there for an hour or so watching the mechanic fixing bikes in their workshop and eating our lunch - I had the vegetable curry and the wife had a bagel and croquette. The cafe attracts all kinds of cyclist and also non-cyclists, curious at this quirky looking place with bikes in the window and rims hanging from the ceiling.

Once we were done the wife and toddler took a ride on a bus and I hopped back onto the bike and rode a less-direct route back to Westminster. The only negatives from today's ride were a 'white van man' revving furiously at me as I cycled away from a set of traffic lights and the strong, cold headwind that made the ride more of a slog than I would have preferred.

15km in total
58 minutes of cycling

Easter weekend 2013 - Saturday

There are still two days left until the 30 days of biking challenge starts but I already started my cycling streak on Good Friday so here goes with post number 2..

Here's my route for Saturday 30 March 2013 -

I would usually parkrun on a Saturday morning but as I am taking a(n enforced) break from running I decided to swing by Dulwich parkrun to see if they needed an extra volunteer. As it happens they had managed to fill all of their roles and I continued with my my ride.

To get to Dulwich park I picked up London Cycle Route 23 (which also crosses the Burgess parkrun course) and headed south. There is a section of route 23 that completely avoids traffic by cutting alongside some playing fields. This section was closed as it is being resurfaced so I had to find my way via an alternative route before picking the cycle route up again just before arriving at the park.

From here I cycled along the south circular and then across to Hilly Fields parkrun just in time to watch the final runners finish. I then continued my loop by heading towards New Cross, through Bermondsey and then up to Waterloo and back over the bridge to my finishing point in Whitehall.

I'm happy to report that there were no nasty incidents. However I did notice that a lot of vehicles seem to use the advanced stop line (ASL) (aka: advanced stop box / bike box) at traffic lights instead of the main stop line. I would have thought that it's pretty clear that these are for cyclists and I as a driver would never consider stopping in one of these so I don't understand why other drivers do so.

Today's cycling - 32km

A Good Friday

I am approaching the start of the 30 days of biking challenge where the goal is to cycle every day in April and share it with the community on twitter by using the #30daysofbiking hashtag. I know I am a few days early here, but the Easter weekend gives me the opportunity to get things kick-started - So I did just that with a bike ride through the streets of West London.

The first part of my route saw me heading from Whitehall to join the super cycle lane (cycle super highway) along the Thames towards Chelsea, I turned right at Albert Bridge and accidentally ended up riding past Earls Court and then Olympia. Just after 11k I arrived at Holland Park to use the car-free cycle route adjacent to the park.

I then went along Ladbroke Grove as this has a cycle lane that I wanted to try out, when I reached the Regents canal I picked up the tow path and headed towards Paddington station. After this I was back on familiar ground as I entered Hyde park. As there were roadworks taking place inside the park I had the pleasure of cycling on empty roads.

After that I headed back to Whitehall through Belgravia and Pimlico

Total for the day - 28.5km