Note: The same train leaves London Bridge at 09:00 and also stops at Charlton and Woolwich before arriving at Gravesend at 09:44

Photographs from last year's Sheppey Ride

A variation on a popular ride we did last year. This time the ride starts and finishes in Gravesend and mantains the picnic on the beach at Sheerness. You can either bring some food with you or just buy some at the Tesco store by the beach.

There are a several opportunties to cut this ride short if you don't want to do the whole ride.

Mostly on roads, but not entirely. Should be OK for all bikes.

Report

Gek, Kieran, Maggie, Bharat, Bill, Jane, Janet, Neville, Lee-Sian, Anthony, Chris, Simon, Susil, Alan and Ian all met at Greenwich Station. Cem, Anil, Noris, Karen and Jo all jumped on the train elsewhere. I t was good to see riders from other boroughs, Kieran, Maggie, Bharat from Edmonton and Anil and Noris from Newham.

A group of twenty riders is difficult to manage and keep together so thanks to Anthony, Karen and Bill who all took turns as the back marker, and Bill again for being a first aider when Lee-Sian took a tumble. It was only cuts from a tumble made while walking and I was surprised that we had 3 first aid kits in the group, but well done Bill for taking care of it.

From Gravesend it was NCN 1 all the way to Otterham Quay where we took the low road with the river side views that runs by the side of the Medway through Upnoor and Lower Halstow to the Kingsferry Bridges over The Swale onto the Isle of Sheppey. The new bridge carries the fast moving traffic off the A249 all the way to Queenborough whilst we took the older and flat Kingsferry lifting bridge and the quieter older road to Queenborough. At Queenborough we found a riverside path that ran for too short a distance by the river and then ran between the flood defences and a large fence that boarded a car park that was a good 1.5 miles in length and filled with new cars mostly Citroens and Peugeots.

We picnicked on the beach at Sheerness and then the group split for the return ride, leaving eleven of us to take the same route back.
I’ve been onto Sheppey a few times now but this was the first time I’d seen the lifting bridge lift. There’s apparently only one other bridge in the world with this kind of design so I felt privileged to witness it. We were stopped for about 10 minutes as a flotilla of small sailing vessels and one large tanker made their way through.

Four left us at Rochester.

Out of Rochester I took a slightly different route back to Gravesend deviating from NCN 1. As well as it being two miles shorter we were rewarded with a fabulous view of the Medway and Rochester from the top of a hill coming out of Strood.

We rejoined NCN 1 just east of Lower Higham after being held up as a consequence of being forced to walk around a car accident that looked as though it had been the result of two cars striking a head on glancing blow.

We were back on the train to Lewisham, as it happened, at 19:19. It was a great day out. Thanks everyone who came and especially those that helped manage the ride.

63 miles.
Very warm.

Ian Pendleton