Urban RetroBike - Saturday 1st December 2012 - The Aftermath

A great day topped up by good company & nice bikes. Its a shame I didn't take any pictures but still had good fun.

Got to see Jonnyboy's new bike; the Demon. A stunning bike & I was quite surprised he bought it along seeing as it was so much bling :shock: . Had some interesting (Nerdy) bike conversation with Jonnyboy & Watleymeister.

Gave me some some ideas for when I have some money :twisted: maybe get a custom fat bike made! Some of the sections on the canal were interesting :roll: specially when my back tyre rolled out while passing some fashionista's.

Glad everyone enjoyed the BMX track at Haggerston Park, met some nice bloke there who was there with his 6 year old son who put all of us to shame! The bloke then let me have a go on his very mint Huffy BMX, very nice of him, managed to get the front wheel in the air! Then the Spanish guy turned up on his BMX & started oggling Jonnyboy's Demon (Looked as if he wanted to mate with it or something ).

It was funny to watch PuleySquire go round & get stuck on a jump! Wish I had taken a picture of it. A great day overall; I was somewhat surprised that we didn't have a cake stop! Should include that next time.

I worked out that I had done around 34 miles in total when I got home, sure didn't feel like it though. Felt as if I had done less than half that. Would love to do this again sometime in the new year perhaps.

As the others have said a realy top day out even if it was bloody cold !! for once i had everything sorted on time even managed to remember the camera !! it was only when i took a few picks that i found out that i had left the memory card in the laptop :roll: Doh !!
So the best i can do is describe them to you all .....
Pick 1
looking east over trees towards o2 arena with old building on the left of picture (prob old power station/pumping station) bit hazy, looks cold

Pick 2
looking north over thames towards canary warf with big posh gaf in the middle distance and raleigh technium heat in the fore ground, looks cold

Pick 3
looking slightly more to the west with canary warf to the right, big posh gaf in the fore ground and other tallish office type building, looks cold

Pick 4
BIG bronze statue of a dead bloke (Mr Wolf) sorry didnt read what he was famous for,he looks cold

and that was it as far as pictures went :?
But have to say a huge thanks to Purley for showing us round i had realy been looking foward to this and i didnt disapoint one bit, i enjoyed the day from start to finnish, also great to share the ride with Whatley, Jonny boy and the new face of Bike man (welcome to the S/E area)
And the day was toped of with a pint,And some fantastic views back towards the city and saaaf london
Those that didnt make it you realy missed out on a good one, so try a make it for the next time this comes up ... i recon this would be ace in the summer when you could take as long as you wanted to get round without the fear of getting hypothermia

Mick

Also forgot to mention, thanks to all who turned up & thanks for voting for my bike. Was quite surprised I won!

Thanks for the welcome Godders, I plan to turn up to more rides as & when I can. Hope to turn up to one of the Leith Hill days (Hopefully). As Godders said above, those that couldn't make it missed out on a great day.

Forgot to mention above, I don't know about the rest of you but I even enjoyed the traffic slalom.

marvelous! i was waiting for the aftermath thread

quality day (until the end, i'll explain later)

my day started from Kilburn where i had been staying with a mate after a few pints and a curry

i decided to meet up with the guys at Greenwich, having never been there before i headed south from Kilburn but got lost :facepalm: it was bound to happen! i don't really know my way around London at all so out came the phone and google maps to the rescue, luckily i found myself right by the Rotherhithe Tunnel so went through it under the Thames, then it was off to Greenwich without too much trouble, next thing i know i see the Cutty Sark and guessed the 3 guys on bikes in the distance were the guys i was looking for!

next thing I know we're crossing the Thames agian but via a lift and another tunnel, this is definitely the first ride i've been on that needed an actual Lift (as in elevator)

i have to say aswel the Purley showed his knowledge of london at this point pointing out loads of the local stuff better than a tour guide

next thing we know we're picking up Bikeman and heading off towards the Olympic village and onto the canal paths of Hackney then back into the centre of London.

I loved the hacking in and out of traffic, it's dangerous and no one should like it but it's like dodgems at the fairground to me. we then got to Her Maj's house where i had to say my goodbyes, quality day blasting around the big smoke with the guys.

the banter was good, the route was good and we had a good laugh

so i then headed back to Kilburn, after succesfully navigating Marble Arch which was truly horrible i was riding along when a woman stepped in to the road infront of me! :shock: managed to hit the brakes but not in enough time and she went flying, luckily she was ok apart from a cut on her hand to brace her landing and seemed more concerned about me, she wasn't daft but had done a daft thing, not looked at what was coming. i did come off the bike but had lost enough speed that nothing was damaged but i was more concerned about her to be honest.

after that i got lost going back to Kilburn so the phone came out again, basically i'd missed a turn then ended up pretty much at Hyde park :facepalm:

by this time i was feeling hungry aswel, think i'd done about 30ish miles, it was 12 to Greenwich, guessing around 10-14 with the guys, then because of my bad sense of direction about 7 back to Kilburn

by the time i got back to my mates place for the drive home i was pretty dead, but well chuffed with the day (except for launching the woman!)

defo up for it again

a couple more

Nice pix

Nice pictures, especially the one of the bikes on the toe path.

Sorry to hear about the accident, I had exactly the same thing some years ago...
A huge West Indian lady looking in the wrong direction for an eternity, then stepped out in front of me as I went past! I went flying, bits of bike everywhere and opened my eyes to see her looming over me "Are you alright daaarlin". :roll:

orange71":3cqogju5 said:

Is that my old Saracen?

Click to expand...

Indeed it is . Bloody love it too, gives a very responsive if ever so slightly harsh ride, but I think its great! She ended up well modernised though. Only thing that would make it better would be if it was maybe an inch shorter - standover is a shade close.

Still, it has performed very well on all rides so far, which cant entirely be said for the fat git riding it!

Made riding through london a pleasure, if we ignore the pedal that died and the squeaky disk :roll:

BMX Track pix

You asked for them...

I quite like those shots actually! Not sure why we all look so serious though

Bikemans Dyna-Tech seems to have shrunk a bit...