Re: Staying in \ Travelling into London - asking the locals
 

The Northern Line is running fine, so you should be OK.

Re: Staying in \ Travelling into London - asking the locals
 

Northern line running fine?
Something for the history books.:)

Re: Staying in \ Travelling into London - asking the locals
 

oh yee of little faith...

Re: Staying in \ Travelling into London - asking the locals
 

I've only just spotted this! Sorry not only am I a wimp but slow too!

Well I'm here. 7:12 train into Euston for 8:00. 15 min walk to King Cross, 10min wait to get to platform, 3 attempts before boarding a tube, 20 mins down to a station connecting to monument, 15 min walk and I found myself staring at the map the realising I was actually there. Hooray!

Saw one bloke just getting off his bike at a nearby bike bay, but he had the last space. However I'd detoured slightly on the walk to check out a likely looking bay and there were only two bikes in it, space for I guess another 6 (4 if you park like me). Whether I could find that bay is another question. How much trouble would you get in for pushing your bike on the pavement? Lots I thought so, ok I won't do that then.

All the walking meant I got to see more of London's roads than I normally do. Was kinda nice observing the bikes in the traffic. One bit near Tower Bridge where the lights changed and all these different bikes set off, jostling for position, lots of different noises from them. Then after a couple of cars caught up a cruiser put-putting along (they really don't strike me as great city bikes?).

Well maybe more from me later. I'm not sure if I'm going to ride tomorrow or not, but I'll definately give it a bash Friday. Thanks for all info on here and offers of help. I hope to make it worthwhile tomorrow and or Friday.

Re: Staying in \ Travelling into London - asking the locals
 

LOL - no probs

With the tube strike off I will be free to come guide you if you wish - been ferrying Vixis to work the last couple of days :)

Re: Staying in \ Travelling into London - asking the locals
 

You sure? That would be really cool but seems like a lot of your time taken up and at the wrong end of the day.

Re: Staying in \ Travelling into London - asking the locals
 

Hmm lets see......

I can stay in bed, or I have an excuse to go play in the traffic on the bike.........

What time do you want to meet at the services :)

David

Re: Staying in \ Travelling into London - asking the locals
 

Sorry - Again i didn't see this till waaay too late. I was expecting to get an email notification of any thread updates... what I didn't realise was that you posted this so soon after my last post that I was still on the site, hence no notification email.

On the positive side of things...

As I was leaving the training place I happened to glance through an office doorway as I walked out. I realised I'd seen a helmet on a window sill and did a bit of a double take and then back tracked to look at it again. A bloke in the office saw all this (walls were partially obscured glass) and gave me a bit of an odd look and asked if he could help in the "what do you think you're looking at" kind of way. Well I mumbled something about wondering if the helmet belonged to anyone in the office (of course it flipping well did) and he said it was his. So I asked him where he parked. Turns out there is an NCP car park no distance at all from the building and there is free bike parking in a dedicated area on the 1st floor with security camera coverage. Woohoo :-) He said there were always spaces so time of arrival wasn't an issue.

Re: Staying in \ Travelling into London - asking the locals
 

I MADE IT! I MADE IT!!

WooHoo :-)

Course is starting now so gonna update this post as and when I can. Brief highlights...

Set off a bit late 7:15. M1 roadworks are even longer than I remember (I'm sure they are actually longer) which kinda lost me some time. Hit the end of the M1 in about an hour dead. Then the real fun began. By luck rather than judgement I got onto the A41 (ask SoulKiss about the route ;-)) and tried to just keep calm. I'm a bit confused about Bus lanes, I thought you coudln't use them but lots of bikes were and bikes were drawn next to buses so I followed the bikes after sitting in teh traffic for a while.
Err kind of got it a bit wrong on the navigation front and ended up going through Regents Park rather than round. But managed to recover that.

update later...

Bimbled along a bit more. Not being too cheeky but occastionally following other bikes up the outside etc. A learning run really. Took quite a long time. Nearly lost faith in my navigating and went to do a random turn off in teh direction I thoguht I ought to be going. Pulled into middle of road, was indicating, but then bottled it and carried on instead - which was good almost immediately I could see a road sign showing a strange U shaped bit of road to go straight ahead and that was exactly what I expecting to arrive at. Down Prescott St and the carpark was at the end. Squeezed past the barrier went upstairs and parked with all the other bikes in the area set aside. :-) Walking out I saw a bike coming in the exit and the barrier for that is a lot shorter so obviously room to get a bike past easily, noted for tomorrow.

So bus lanes... Some you can go in and others you can't???

Training starting again...