IBikeLondon Christmas Ride 8th Dec

What a great time we had on our Christmas ride last Saturday! Though pretty cold, the weather was dry and sunny.

We met around 11am at Hyde Park, again in front of the Achilles statue. It was a pleasure to recognize some people from the previous Parks and Rivers Ride, one of them was even dressed up as Santa! Others had installed fairy lights, tinsel or MonkeyLectric lights on their bikes to shine in the dark. The group was a mix of people from all ages and bicycles: Fixies, Bromptons, mountain bikes, roadsters, a recumbent bike, shoppers, and even… Barclays bikes!

After giving away some maps of the route and the famous IBikeLondon badges, it was time to ‘hit the road Jack’.

After going along Hyde Park (avoiding the crowd of Winter Wonderland!) we headed to Regent’s Park. Our first break was on top of Primrose Hill where we enjoyed a nice panorama of London and a snack. It also proved a most excellent opportunity for some of us to take cool photos. On our way down we said hello to a group of giraffes from the London Zoo.

We had to by-pass Camden (too busy on weekends) before going down to the canal. Cycling along the river is such a peaceful and interesting route: All around there was various and innovative architecture, street art works and nice boats to have a gander at. All the way our riders rang their bells to warn pedestrians – and it resulted in a ‘happy cacophony’.

After going around Victoria Park, we had a break at the Counter café to admire some cool artworks and warm us up with a hot beverage. The last part of the route along the canal was as nice as the previous one, even more tranquil.

We arrived at the pub in Victoria Park when the daylight was almost gone, there we enjoyed a cup of (not really hot though) mulled cider while playing table football. A few lucky riders got one of our ride A3 posters as a gift and we hope this rounded off a great day’s cycling for everyone