London by bike

A bike, Google Maps and an iPhone are all you need to explore our great capital city

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One of the great things that my bikes have done for me is really open up London. Anywhere within a 20-mile radius of my house is in striking distance, without having to find a route by public transport.

Kenwood House in Hampstead.
Photo by IdoruKnits.

And it’s so easy. All I do is think of somewhere I might like to visit and look it up on Google Maps. Using the bike directions service, I programme the route into my phone, which then attaches to my handlebars, and just follow the blue line. It isn’t perfect, sometimes the route updates rather slowly and I end up missing a turning, and when it’s sunny it’s impossible to see the screen until I cycle through a shaded bit. But it mostly works and it’s mostly great.

What’s really nice about cycling is that the journey becomes part of your day out

So far my adventures have taken me to Victoria Park, an exhibition of bugs made from rubbish at Pitfield Gallery, Kenwood House and Highgate. I’ve also got plans to visit Mudchute City Farm, Greenwich Park, Rye Meads RSPB reserve and Richmond. Tate Modern is within easy reach, which I’ll probably combine with a walk to Borough Market. I always choose places with nice cafes or pubs, where I can have a sit down and a spot of lunch.

I’ve got a couple of favourite shorter rides too. One to Stoke Newington via Walthamstow Marshes and one to the Butler’s Retreat on the edge of Epping Forest. This weekend I'm planning a trip to Battersea Park via Victoria Park, along the Lea River and Hertford Union Canal.

Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington.
Photo by IdoruKnits.

What’s really nice about cycling is that the journey becomes part of your day out. My ride to Kenwood House took me past a stunning art deco cinema that I would never have seen had I not been on the bike. The ride to Victoria Park takes me along the River Lea and through Walthamstow and Hackney Marshes – it’s almost like being in the countryside.

I’ve started taking photos while I’m out and about, sharing them on Instagram and Twitter (I'm idoruknits on the former and @IdoruKnits on the latter if you want to find me). I hashtag them #londonbybike and I’m hoping to get others doing the same - wouldn’t it be great to share all our photos of our bike trips in the city? So next time you’re cycling somewhere, take some shots and Tweeting! Remember the hashtag, though, so that I can search for your photos.

Beautiful Rhododendron in the gardens
of Kenwood House. Photo by IdoruKnits.

A new bike and some delivery woes

It was only a matter of time till I bought a road bike, but I didn’t expect actually getting hold of it would be quite so traumatic …

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I love my hybrid – Millicent has been there for me through all weathers and on all terrains, on short rides and long(ish). But I’ve been hankering for a road bike for a while, ever since I got back on a bike really, so it was only a matter of time till I gave in to that desire.

I’ve been sporadically checking out the ladies’ road bikes on Wiggle, searching for one I like the look of. I didn’t want to spend too much – certainly not as much as £1,000 – which cut down my options quite considerably. There was a 2013 model Bianchi bike (the Women's C2C Nirone 7 Dama Sora), but that was £800, and I decided that my limit was £700. The bike was beautiful, but I wasn’t about to break my budget.

This was back in January and I’d been looking for something as lovely ever since. In March I came across the Felt Women’s ZW100 2014. Metallic grey with hot pink highlights, this had to be the bike for me. Even better it only cost £599 – a whole £100 under my upper spend limit. What’s more, my brother (The Cyclist) receives a 12% discount from Wiggle, so ordering it through his account saved me just under £72!

Metallic grey with hot pink highlights, the Felt Women’s ZW100 2014 had to be the bike for me

Unfortunately I then had to wait till the end of April for the bike to be delivered. I don’t know why it took so long. The other frame size was just a couple of weeks, so I’m guessing that the size I needed had completely sold out and Wiggle was waiting for more to be manufactured.

So I waited for the rest of March and throughout April, until I received an exciting text from Wiggle saying the bike would be delivered on 18 April. This confused me somewhat as that was Good Friday, a bank holiday. But I figured that courier companies don’t necessarily stop work because it’s Easter, and even if the office staff weren’t in the drivers might still be out and about.

And that's when everything started to go wrong. It's quite a long tale, and I'm going to recount it exactly as it happened so you can draw your own conclusions. If you're in a hurry, though, you might want to skip to the end.

You had one job
Good Friday had been designated gardening day, so we plugged the doorbell ringer in the kitchen so we’d hear it and went about our business. By 6pm nothing had arrived and I sadly had to accept that I wasn’t going to get my bike in time to ride it over the Easter break. I emailed the courier company, UK Mail, hoping there might be someone in on the Saturday to answer it. No such luck.

My brother then received an email from Wiggle saying the bike would be delivered on Tuesday 22 April. Great – except that there wouldn’t be anyone at home that day. In fact there wouldn’t be anyone at home till the following Friday. But of course I could just go online and change the delivery date using the consignment number that Wiggle had provided. Except I couldn’t. UK Mail still had the delivery date as the 18th and wouldn’t let me change it to the 25th.

I emailed them again, asking for the delivery date to be changed. No response. The delivery driver phoned on the 22nd saying he couldn’t deliver the bike. He put a card through the door and went away. Which meant I could now use the card number to rearrange delivery for Friday. That evening I happily went online, entered the card number into UK Mail’s automated system and … it still had the delivery date as 18th, and I still couldn’t change it.

By this time I was pretty pissed off, and I contacted Wiggle asking if they could sort something out. I also tweeted a couple of quite angry comments to UK Mail’s Twitter account. The following morning I got up early to phone UK Mail as soon as they opened. I spoke to a lady there who, after a couple of attempts – her system crashed every time she tried to do something; not exactly confidence inspiring – said delivery had been rearranged for Friday. I went off to work happy that everything was sorted. I even considered contacting Wiggle again to tell them it was all OK.

Mid-morning, however, I got call from a chap at Wiggle, who was very apologetic. He'd phoned UK Mail and it turned out that the bike was down for delivery that day – Wednesday, not Friday after all. He'd managed to get it changed to the 25th. Come Friday I wasn't convinced the bike would turn up so I asked The Chap for photographic evidence when (if) it did. And at 12.52 the image below arrived.

What could be in the box? A bike, obvs.

Friday evening was dedicated to giant box opening and attaching pedals and handlebars to Florence. The rest of weekend was dedicated to stroking and testing out Florence. I never did receive a reply to my emails from UK Mail.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Florence.