Trip 10: Heathrow Terminal 5

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Two and a half months, two and a half spokes, hundreds of miles, one 100-mile detour and here we are. A quick round-up list goes like this:
Best station: Uxbridge. All the Piccadilly stations seem to be classic buildings. There should be more like them and fewer like those on the Central line.
Strangest ride: Must be a tie between the first and the last. North and South London fade into suburbs and parks and so on; the industrio-airport stretch East and West throws up some frightening rides and creepy desolation.
Surprise find: the Grand Union canal towpaths, which I kinda knew were there, but had never really explored.
Furthest: Epping. Worth it? Nah.
Nearest: Hammersmith (or Waterloo). Worth it? Nah.

And so today's last jaunt mostly along the A4 which beyond Brentford has one of those handy but often annoying side-of-road bike paths. What this means is it's very safe and comfortable, but when you come to a cross road it's very unsafe and uncomfortable; you have to either stop or crane your neck around to see if anyone's turning, or usually both, and then creep across or speed across as conditions dictate. So stop and go all the way, and getting out to Heathrow was never going to be easy, was it? Especially this time of year in the dark, the merciless traffic and merciless Tube workers (no you can't go on the Underground, not even just this once). But forget all that. The elation comes with counting down the miles out to Terminal 5, until you're there underneath what can only be called the superstructure. Planes overhead coming in and out; it's both the ultimate terminus point for London and the ultimate transit point for the world. And so the bike and this challenge gets retired ... but all the rest continues.

Trip 9: Elephant and Castle, Lewisham, Brixton, Kensington Olympia, Hammersmith

Life for many in London is nasty, brutish and south. There's not many tube stations down there and in fact you can visit most of them in about an hour. Otherwise the residents have to rely on buses and other road-using transport.

I'm not one of these people who is all snobby about south London, I mean it's got a lot going for it, but traffic is not one of those things. Or rather, traffic is one of those things, as it's got it in abundance.

I took an unexpected detour down memory lane this evening, on the way to Lewisham I realised I'd be going past Goldsmiths College, where I did my MA. I hadn't been back much since leaving but there it was.

You know how things are. They don't change much except for one thing that appears to be telling. A smartened-up pub down the street was about it. And a new shop called 'Rubbish and Nasty'. Art students, gotta love em. Otherwise there were a bunch of places I never went in, the proud Deptford Town Hall (where we took the Media Law exam) and the library.

Well there's only one stop left.


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Almost done.

Trip 8: Euston, Walthamstow Central, Epping, Cockfosters, Mill Hill East

The longest ride yet and indeed the longest ride of them all. I started out from home base in West London. Of all the stations that barely count Euston perhaps counts the least however it is the end of an Overground branch and thus must be visited and ticked off the list.

From there it was through North London back streets, coming up Highbury in front of the huge and now slightly less-than-new football stadium. Through Stoke Newington where in true cliched style I met an over-friendly drunk within five minute of crossing the Islington-Hackney border. And then to huge new Clapton developments and crossing the Lea.



On the way to Walthamstow I had a fortunate accident. Coming down a hill a bus pulled ahead of the car that was ahead of me. I could not stop in time and smashed the guy's back light out. Not his fault - mostly the bus's - but the guy was nice about it. This prompted me to get my brakes replaced a couple of weeks later. Good move.

I was expecting Epping to be, well, more of a forest. Instead a commuter town like any other, a long main drag leading to the M25. Some pretty back roads, but these were only getting me lost. It was a windy day and the gusts were coming in the wrong direction.




And the hills. Oh, the hills.






Cockfosters, Mill Hill East. On the way home I got caught behind a Notting Hill carnival float. So yes this happened in late August. But we're almost there, the end is in sight.