Saturday 5 th November – Waltham Abbey

OK , so the powder mills were closed – this did slightly dent the November 5 th themed day. However, Waltham Abbey has another great attraction, implicit in its name, the Abbey. I won't go into the historic details some of them major, you can get an overview here http://www.britannia.com/church/waltham.html

10 of us met at Cutty Sark Gardens and 2 more met us on route - Barry , Ian, David, Sarah, Steve, Barbara, Colin, Anil, Trevor, Tim, Sue, John.

We stopped on route at Springfield Park by the rowing club for coffee.

I'd said in pre ride description pre amble that maybe the new section of path between Lee Valley Viaduct and Enfield Lock might be finished and .. . . . . . . . it was! The roughest section of the path has been vanquished and replaced with a path that has been both widened and smoothed. This opens the way on the Lee Valley path for almost any kind of bike with any kind of tyre from Limehouse to Waltham . There are still sections between Waltham and Hertford that I'd say are the preserve of wide tyred hybrids and mountain bikes.

We had lunch at the very old worldly Welsh Harp after a brief look around the abbey and it's exhibition. The town looked kind of interesting but because it's winter we haven't a lot of day light and you do need some for riding at the side of canals so we had to leave earlier than I would have liked.

We arrived back in Greenwich at 17:00.

Thanks all for a good day out. Barry mended the one puncture.

There were 5 for the fireworks ride to Blackheath – Ian, Paul, Judith, Hugh and sorry I for I've forgot the other one.

Photos of the Waltham Abbey ride will appear on Lewisham's website later.

See some of you on the Hoo ride on Saturday

Cheers,

Ian.