In which Mark gets sentimental about cycling in London…

This weekend, after many months of training, we will cycle 100 miles through London and Surrey in less than eight hours. But the process didn’t start with the training. In 2007, I was the most unfit, most out-of-shape I’ve ever been, when a wondrous thing came to London one Sunday: the Hovis Freewheel.

Closed central London roads with led rides in from various outer London points, it was the spiritual predecessor to the Ride London weekend. Audrey suggested we go along (she is wonderful for making sure we do these things) and although I’d not turned a pedal in well over a decade I jumped at the chance. Registering for the event, we got our shiny red tabards, hired bikes, and cycled in from the hub on Clapham Common.

We had a wonderful time, getting carried away with the pure joy of zooming along iconic central London roads without any traffic to worry about, completing lap after lap of the 8.5 mile route. We pushed it rather too far and caused ourselves some knee troubles in the process, but it was an eye-opening experience.

A few years passed; we flirted with the gym for a while, I made some small fitness gains, nothing major or consistent. Then, in the summer of 2010, a strip of cycle lane appeared outside the station where we embark on our daily tube commute. Cycle Superhighway 7 had arrived, stretching from Colliers Wood to the City of London – my commute represented in sky blue paint on the road. Even my inexperienced non-cyclist eyes could see the paint provided no useful cycling space (particularly through Tooting where it’s mostly under parked cars), but it highlighted that it was conceivable for me to cycle to work, which I hadn’t considered before. Looking into the practicalities of it, I found multiple routes I could take (thanks Cyclestreets!), each around ten miles. That sounded like A Very Long Way – but achievable, at least occasionally.

Around this time, the cycle hire scheme (aka ‘Boris Bikes’) also launched in central London, giving me a first taste of cycling on the open roads of our city. Frankly terrifying the first few times, for some reason I stuck with it… the freedom, the joy of the activity, the joining up of the places previously only connected by a coloured line on the tube map. The city started to open up, the sights along the way so much better than tunnels covered in inches of brake dust.

I finally got myself a bike in the summer of 2011 (a Specialized Sirrus hybrid), taking Merton’s rather good free adult cycle training before venturing the whole way in to work. By the autumn I was cycling to work occasionally, working my way up to 3-4 times per week. And to this day, cycling across Clapham Common in the morning mist or seeing the vista of London open up wide across the horizon in front of me when crossing Southwark Bridge is a buzz every single time.

Several thousand miles of commuting and cycling around London later, the foundations for the fitness required for this coming weekend were well laid. But more importantly, the foundations for a healthier life – for the first time as an adult I’m getting enough regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight. And unlike trudging away at the gym, it’s mostly a joy to do.

So, thank you London – you wonderful, flawed metropolis. There’s so much to be negative about when it comes to cycling in this city, but for me, for my health, through flawed interventions like Cycle Superhighway 7, through great interventions like the Cycle Hire scheme, and through well-intentioned mass events like the Freewheel and its successors, London has worked wonders. Small enablers that prompt and allow a healthier lifestyle.

The city can, and should, be so much better for cycling, and there are encouraging signs that improvements are on their way. Hopefully we will see cycling becoming a more inclusive activity, more open to all, as these plans come to fruition. There are enormous health benefits of building activity into our lives in this way; benefits that are clear and well known and that spread out beyond the individual to society at large (the cost of treating obesity and its related illnesses in the UK is over £4bn a year).

But you don’t need to wait for things to be built – there are some great cycling routes to be had in this city already (ask me and I’ll help you find them) – and if I can go from a sedentary zero and borderline-obese to cycling 100 miles in a go (or, more to the point, thousands of miles per year) and a healthy weight in a pretty short time, then so can just about anyone.

And so to this weekend. 100 miles of beautiful closed roads as we Ride London. Tens of thousands of participants. Thousands more watching on the streets. Get on your bikes and join the party! Enjoy Saturday’s Freecycle on closed roads in central London, or work out how to start building a bit of cycling in to your lives. Once you start…

It’s been a wonderful week for our Friendship Works fundraising total – we’re now just shy of £1000 (if anyone feels like adding £17.12…), with £350 donated in the last seven days alone by you fabulous people!

As promised, we’ll be matching £200 of that, and after my employer matches it all that will mean an extra £1100 for Friendship Works compared to where we were last Thursday, and over £2350 overall – which we think is absolutely cracking!

It means a huge amount to us that you’ve all been so generous in your support – we’re genuinely humbled and a huge thank you to every single one of you. Now all that remains is that pesky 100 miles to cycle…

Hello everyone!

We’re cycling the Ride London 100 on August 4th 2014, and we’ve set up this blog to keep a record of our training, preparations and fund raising progress. We’re keeping it as much for our benefit as anything, but hopefully others will find it interesting too. Do leave us a comment if there’s anything you’d like to hear more or less about, to ask any questions, or to take the mickey out of Mark’s continued inability to use clipped pedals. We’ve posted back-dated entries for the training rides we’ve already done, so have a read of those to get up to date on where we are up to. You can find links to all of those posts at the end of this one, so keep reading.

Friendship Works

We’re aiming to raise £2,000 for the great local charity Friendship Works. They provide long-term adult mentors to children struggling with a variety of problems such as social exclusion, troubled home lives, behavioural issues, or the responsibility for caring for a parent.

These amazing volunteer mentors commit to spending significant time with their assigned child 3 out of every 4 weekends for a minimum of two years. This is a huge commitment on the part of the volunteer, but one which allows the child to develop a long term trusting relationship with the mentor. Reaching our target would fund five new mentors through the vital training required before they can start to support their assigned child.

The volunteer mentor gives the child an important and stable adult relationship they can rely on, helping them to enjoy childhood experiences many would take for granted, and give them opportunities they may not otherwise have access to. If you’d like to learn more about Friendship Works and the excellent and effective work they do, please visit their website.

Your support will help Friendship Works achieve their goal of supporting over 200 children with their own friend and mentor this year – helping them to enjoy their childhoods, build their confidence and discover their potential in society.

Ride London-Surrey 100

This event, set up by the Mayor of London as part of the Olympic legacy, is a 100 mile cycle sportive* starting at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London then zooming out far into Surrey and back for the classic finish on The Mall in front of Buckingham Palace.

It follows a route similar to that used for the Olympic cycling road races, taking in many London sights and two major climbs – Box Hill, with its famous zig zag road, and Leith Hill, the highest peak in south-east England. Both of which we are dreading.

While technically there is a time limit of nine hours, the ignominy of finishing in a longer time than (Mayor of London) Boris Johnson took to haul his ample bulk around last year means that for all intents and purposes, there’s an 8h04m time limit. Our target, however, is to ride and finish together in six to seven hours.

* a sportive is, apparently, a non-race timed event where the target is to complete the course in a good time for yourself, rather than beat other people. So I’m told. I know little of such things, I just ride a bike to work sometimes.

About Us

We’re just a pair of sheep who use bikes to get around the place, neither of us have done any remotely sporty cycling before. Mark has cycled to work a good amount over the last couple of years, a ten mile or so distance, and Audrey has increasingly done so too once or twice a week. For both of us, stretching out to 100 miles and doing so in our target of six to seven hours or less is a major challenge, which will require lots of training. So, give us a boost and support us when our dodgy knees are giving out behind the Millennium Dome and chuck a few quid in for Friendship Works.

Thanks for reading!

Mark & Audrey

Appendix: The Story So Far

As we’re a bit late getting this blog up, here are links to the back-dated posts about our first few training rides:

• First ride – 30.5 miles along & 2,356ft up
• Richmond Park Training
• Richmond Park Training Part 2
• Tour de London Parcs
• Ticking off the London boroughs