London Freewheel - 21st (was 23rd in 2007!) Sep

[lemontop]

I've signed up but I'm not going so you've got one extra space if it helps.

Nothing I have received makes me think that you can't go if you're not registered.

sorry... tommers again, not lemontop.

 

[dynamicbaddog]

That was fun. It was quite an impressive sight, wish I'd come out with my camera.I did'nt really intend to go, but I was out on my bike anyway and joined it at London Bridge for the last hour or so, went up to Hyde Park then back to Westminister Bridge. I did'nt get any free sarnies tho, the queue for them at Hyde Park was too long to bother

 

[han]

Han is your number still the same as it was about 2 years ago? If not, I don't have it.

Yes - it is! I don't seem to have yours though....

Well we had a lovely afternoon - though this was the first time I'd experienced bicycle gridlock

The butty situation was dire - they were chucking them out like feeding a crowd of pigeons with bread! I'm amazed there wasn't a riot !

The bmx stuff was cool.

The whole thing was a fantastic idea - though I hope next time they make it twice the size, cos it really was quite a tiny area that was traffic free.

Jan got a big load of bogroll stuck in her chain and her back wheel fell out thankfully a bike mechanic who looked like superman appeared as if from nowhere and fixed it. yay.

All in all, a good day. More of this please Ken! The vast numbers who turned up demonstrate how many people want London to be a bicycle friendly city, so hopefully it will go some way to helping to improve the lot of cyclists in the pecking order of transport.....

 

[han]

Those soundystems on tricycles were soooo cool.

 

[Crispy]

missed this, but want to make critical mass this friday...

 

[Miss-Shelf]

i got a bit irritated with all the stopping and jollyness of the marshalls. oh well - maybe i'm not v good at joining in

did bump into some old work colleagues/friends which was just as well as I had begun to rant at strangers about the organisedness of it!

sorry stig not to text - I ran out of battery just as i arrived. Next time

(sorry to miss your food - I had good roasty veg to share too)

 

[Maggot]

I missed this too, was too tired/hungover.

 

[Stig]

Well, we fucked off the whole thing, as we were having a grumpy day, and we just wanted to lay in bead whining, and then spend all day spread over the sofa playing computer games and doing nothing else whatsoever.

It was brilliant. we haven't done nothing at all for months, and we loved it.

We kept meaning to make a break for the outside world, but it didn't happen until we eventually ran out of milk.

Hope everyone else had a good one though!

 

[Ravel]

I came in from outside London for this, and was glad I did, it's certainly not for everyone, but I had great fun

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

good bits - lots of bikes out and about in town. cycling down there with our posse. beautiful sunny day. people behaving themselves generally and cycling sensibly. um, that's about it.

bad bits - far too many bikes for far too small an area. stop. go. stop. go. etc etc. st james park absolutely rammed and chaotic stewarding. no sarnies cos we couldn't negotiate our way into the bike festival bit with our bikes?

If they do anything like this again, it needs a longer route with perhaps Hyde Park as the hub bit, so that's there is more space and less claustrophobia.

 

[dynamicbaddog]

. no sarnies cos we couldn't negotiate our way into the bike festival bit with our bikes?

.

the festival bit was the only part of the afternoon that I did'nt really enjoy, it was a bit of a let down, especially the hovis 'picnic area' the free sarnies were just slices of bread spread with a thin layer of cream cheese and a queue about a mile long for them, I did'nt bother, why would people want to queue up for that amount of time just for a free slice of bread Also I had a bit of a panic moment as I had chained my bike up to a railing before entering the 'festival' and on leaving could'nt remember excatly where it was amongst all the other bikes and railings , found it in the end so all was well.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Locating our bikes was partly why we wanted to take our bikes into the festival with us, rather than chaining them up. We were told by one steward that we couldn't do this and pointed towards the bike park, then we were told by another steward that we could take our bikes with us and pointed in another direction. Then we reached a point where we were told that we weren't allowed to proceed any further and had to go back to another exit.

And then, we squeezed slowly out through a gateway, listening to some woman haranguing a steward because she'd been told one thing and then another and was quite clearly having some bother getting to where she wanted to be. And when we finally squeezed through this gate, we found ourselves outside the festival bit again and back on the main route so we could see the stands and sarnies and trick riders but we couldn't actually get to them. Very frustrating and very poorly organised imo.

Glad you found your bike tho

 

[Stig]

Quite glad we didn't go after reading that!

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Yes, i'm kind of glad that we went along but after leaving n16 at 12 midday, we were all back at the Rosemary Branch sipping lovely London Pride by 2pm, having completed one lap from London Bridge to St James Park and back again. Like say, if they give it more road space and improve the organisation, it would be much better.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Just remembered, we also saw Boris buzzing around, stirring up support

 

[Tricky Skills]

I'm all for the Freewheel in principle, but it just wasn't for me. It's got to be a good thing to encourage more cyclists, but I thought the day itself was poorly organised.

The Clap'ham hub was crap (nightmare backstreets to negotiate,) the main Freewheel itself was just stop / start and it was nothing but a highly commercialised Critical Mass.

I hope the event continues, but I think there's a lot of lessons to learn from the first year.

I've posted some pics up over HERE.

 

[fjydj]

this year its the 21st September, the route is on the website now

http://www.london.gov.uk/freewheel/eventdetails/routemap.jsp

it look's a simpler route than last year missing out parliament square and whitehall, but taking in trafalgar square and the mall.

 

[pinkychukkles]

I hope it's better organised this year after reading this thread, I feel slightly deflated after sending out an email to all my buddies who have bikes in London. A seperate thread perhaps or can a mod alter the thread title to make it relevant for this years Freecycle? So anyone urbanits planning a return trip or is it best just to cycle to a pre-determined pub and remain there?

 

[sim667]

Train companies wont let you take bikes to london on the 21st...... really annoying as i want to go

 

[han]

I'm gonna go....it WAS a bit crappily organised last year, but as long as you go with no expectations other than just having some traffic-free streets, it's fine.

I'll definitely take me own grub this time!

 

[han]

Deffo up for Critical Mass on Friday though.....anyone else?

 

[han]

That was fun - loads better than last year, not nearly as packed.

 

[Pat24]

It was a really fun day out. I didnt get a glimpse of any of the olympic cyclist, nor Boris...was he really there i wonder?

 

[pinkychukkles]

Didn't make this in the end as I had some other pressing jobs to do - glad it was good though .