A Day in the Country

A bank holiday weekend, and it’s out on the bike again with Phil. We gave Richmond Park another go, but usual English weather put paid to that. We did a few laps, but the 32mph winds were just getting silly, so we called it a day. Certainly didn't stop the deer doing their thing (above).

We caught up again on the holiday Monday for another shot, but this time we used the park purely as a meeting point. We headed off for a ride that took us along the Thames through Kensington (right), past Hampton Court Palace before following the Thames again all the way to Windsor. Along the way, we passed through Shepperton, Staines and Egham, which you may recall from the first Walking the Thames post last year. It was kinda cool to pass by some of the places I'd seen from the path by the river, while heading in the opposite direction.
We did stop off at Runnymeade by the Magna Carta memorial, to enjoy a coffee in a small café/tea room by the river. [by the way, you'll need to excuse the photography here as it was all taken from on the bike - ie; while moving.] Anyway, from here we headed through Old Windsor, which took us past the walkway to Windsor Castle (right). They do do impressive castles over here... We then took a left turn and after a K or two, went into Great Windsor Park (below left). What a fantastic park too. Almost no cars, a spattering of tarmac roads through this picturesque place, plenty of walking trails and also specific "horse only" trails. The horse riders even had elevated buttons to use to open the gates. But basically just a massive English country estate and park full of forestry, tree spattered grasslands and the afore-mentioned paths...
The area surrounding the park was also fairly amazing when you pass by some of the incredible mansions and just old housing estates. We had a pretty good cruise past many of these places before finding the London-Oxford cycle route (sign posted by Sustrans) and using this to help find our way back to the Thames. From here we located our original route and retraced it back to Richmond Park.

The round trip of the day worked out at just on 90kms and despite the lack of sunshine was a great day out exploring the English countryside.

Richmond Park

I caught up with Phil, who you may remember from the Roubaix trip a month ago to ride Richmond Park. It’s a VERY popular place for cyclists as a lap around the three main roads (in a triangle) works out at just under 11kms. It sounds easy, but I certainly wasn’t ready for the two hills - Richmond Hill and Bloomfield Hill - both let you know you’ve worked to get up them. Oh, and coming down them is great fun as long as you can avoid the cars... With a 20mph (30kmh) speed limit and so many cyclists out there it really does make you wonder why you’d even bother to drive through the park. Sure the park is very beautiful and its inhabitants (above) are a bit unique, but why would you go through the annoyance and hassle of driving it? I do have to admit that it does sound pretty cool to now claim that I can overtake a Porsche while riding a bike. Who cares if he’s still in 2nd gear...
But I digress... a full five laps later we were both feeling it, so it was time to join the rest in the sun at the cafe for a coffee, a chat and a bit of a look around. On a day of sunshine and 24C, why not be out in the sun and enjoying yourself - they don’t happen too often in these parts!

If you’re interested, here’s what a lap of the park looks like - the red line is my heart-rate, the blue is my speed (or lack there of in parts!)...With the ride there and back on top of the 5 laps, the day rounded out at just on 80kms, and that's without leaving the city! And as you can see below - what a day...

Paul Dempsey

Who? I could tell you how he’s the ex-lead singer from the Australian band, Something For Kate, but you still may not know who I meant. Does it matter? Probably not. What matters is that it was a night that captures the essence of live music - a performer, their instrument and their music. Up there on stage, doing their thing and doing it with their heart and soul. Getting to be there and be a part of that which you do not get on CD’s, records or even watching it on a dvd... This is why I love live music.

Although, I’m not that big a fan - in fact, I really haven’t paid much attention to him or his band, Something For Kate. Sure, I know of them, but they’re not up there in my top five, or even top ten of favourite muso’s or bands. Still, a relatively quiet night in a small pub venue with only about one to two hundred other folk, we enjoyed what he gave us. Quite a memorable night in that small and hot venue. A man, his acoustic guitar and his passion. One with his music and quite amicable towards his small audience - intimate, if you will. He freely admitted to having no play list for the night, and that he would let the night just go and see where it went. Naturally, this provoked a barrage of requests from those of us standing and watching. Regardless, he went with it, happy to share with us.

Not a spectacular night out, but one of those nice evenings with something unique to it. A night that will continue as a good night and a good experience with a good musician...

Out in the Sticks

Time to get back out on the mountain bike (MtB) as there’s no point having it if I’m going to spend so much time riding on the road. That, and I have missed cross country (XC) riding since leaving Melbourne.

So, with the sun shining, I headed out to the TrailBreak riding event at Princes Risborough - a small village/town to the north east of London. TrailBreak organise trail rides through south-east England, and this one had three rides to do - short, medium and long. I chose medium, which was advertised as 3.5-5.5hrs to do, simply because I’d paid for the train trip there and felt the short ride wasn’t really worth the cost of train and entry.
I was soon to discover that XC in England was somewhat different to XC in Australia. There really wasn’t much technical singletrack trails like I was hoping for, as most of the ride was on walking trails or unsealed/gravel backlanes, with plenty of tarmac roads between them. Don’t get me wrong here, as it was an enjoyable ride through the English countryside and forests, but when I reached the finish in just under 2hrs20mins I was a little surprised to finish so quickly. I hadn’t really pushed things either as this was the first time back on the MtB (properly) in nearly 3 years - even spending some time faffing about on the bike to take the pic here.
There was a good friendly atmosphere for the day as well as plenty of kids out on the trails too. It was a good day out and good to start picking the skills back up after finding myself a tad rusty. And no falls, which is always a good thing.

With this in mind, I headed out to an Evans’ Ride It! event last Saturday. TrailBreak were also doing one, but theirs was a 6 mile ride from the train station versus just a 1 mile ride for the Evans one. If you’re thinking (like I did) that the 1 mile was going to be easy, well, here’s the data for it and this was just to get to the start!

Again, I chose the medium event, and this one, through the countryside near Reading, was a vast improvement upon the last. Far more forestry and trails through them. Still plenty of backlanes (both sealed and tarmac), but there are so many roads across England and I guess you do need to get from one trail to the next. There were also quite a few more horses out on the trails as well as hikers, and I have no problem sharing the trails with them. It’s just a matter of being able to ride where you can in these areas, and I do appreciate these groups like Evans Cycles and TrailBreak puting these events on with what they have.
A bit of light rain for this ride, which made the tree roots on the trails a little slippery and there was even some mud and puddles in places. It did keep me on my toes as I stayed upright for the duration. Some good trails and I can see the appeal of hiking through such a picturesque area near the Thames. Riding the ridge trails along a section of the Thames was a bit of a throwback to the trails along the Yarra in Melb - just way cooler... I got a little more bang-for-my-buck this time as the course was nearly 10kms longer - I did it in just under 2hrs40mins.

Both groups do well organised events, with the XC on the Saturday and the road riding (sportive) event on the Sundays. As much as I’d like to do both days, I do need to give the legs a day off after racking up over 150kms in commuting during the week...

They Call it Football...

...And they love it over here! Okay, so I’m rather partial to it as well, and to Tottenham as you’ll have no doubt noticed over the past couple of years.

The big North London derby between Tottenham and Arsenal is one of the game’s biggest rivalries and was going to be Vanessa’s first ever football match. I’d managed to scarper a pair of tickets to this match (not easy!) for someone else who couldn’t make it in the end, so I asked my newly arrived cousin if she’d like to see what it’s all about.

It was a Wednesday night, so after meeting up at Liverpool Street station, we headed up to White Hart Lane on the train. As we got closer, so the number of Spurs fans on board increased. You could feel the buzz at this point and from some of the heated discussions and displays of support being shown, Vanessa did ask “what have I got myself in for?”. It wasn’t the last time she asked this...

Soaking up a bit of matchday atmosphere in the high street, she was amazed at both the volume of people as well as the many varied types. And also the passion being shown by people just walking down the street - the singing, the outbursts of “Yid Army” or “C’mon Spurs”, the excitement that you could feel... The smell of the roadside burger vans also adds to the atmosphere around the ground, and that was where we grabbed what was to be dinner. The burgers may be ordinary, but they’re all part of the experience that is English football matches...
As the crowds gathered at the turnstiles and the clock ticking ever closer to kick off, things were getting a little anxious as to whether we’d all be inside for the start. Once through the turnstiles we were all running up the stairs to our seats. We may have missed kick off by a few minutes, but the atmosphere inside the ground was at the highest I’ve seen there for some time. Vanessa was speechless for the first ten minutes as she tried to take it all in. For those of you that know Vanessa, to do that for just one minute is impressive enough!

Nearly 40,000 fans singing in one voice is an incredible thing, especially when backed by the incredible passion in these fans, and continuing for nearly the full 90 minutes. It doesn’t matter what AFL or NRL match you’ve been to back home in Australia, be it the ANZAC Day match or Grand Finals... nothing, and I mean NOTHING comes close to this. It is an amazing experience to be part of, and Vanessa seemed to be loving it as she tried to take it all in.

The match itself had more significance than usual as Tottenham had not beaten Arsenal in a league match (not counting Cup competitions) for 11 years. Plenty of draws and a few losses, but no wins. With Spurs scoring the first goal, the stadium erupted into wild celebrations, and again it took Vanessa by surprise. She had many questions about the game and she seemed to pick up on a lot of it, although that age old confusion of the Offside Rule will never get any easier to explain (or work out)...

With the balance of play see-sawing a bit, the match eventually ended 2-1 to Tottenham on what was a bit of an historic night [with the win - that's us enjoying it on the right]. We headed back to the usual pub for the after game experience and to meet up with a few of the usual suspects that I’ve met over the past two and a half years.
Again, the celebrations in the pub (and beer garden) took my cousin a little by surprise, but she still enjoyed it all. Eventually we left to catch last trains and tubes home - Vanessa with that incredible experience of an amazing first English football match, and myself with an invite to free accommodation in Norway thanks to bumping into a Norwegian friend I’d not seen since last season. Oh, and also with that warm glow that comes with beating Arsenal...

The roar at the final whistle...

On a side note, it was our late Grandfather who introduced me to "football" and Tottenham, and I'm sure he'd have had a smile on his face to have seen his grandchildren enjoy this night.