Bike Rides London

Pedals and Palaces: Bushy Park & Hampton Court Explorers Cycle Ride

B Ride - Hell of the Ashdown - 150km, 2200m

🅰️Surrey Hill - 110km, 1400m🅰️

Sunday Summer Series - A Ride - Hell of the Ashdown - 150km, 2200m

🅰️Nearly Chichester and back! - 200km, 2,200m🅰️

Cycling in France

A week's cycling holiday in Southwest France. We are cycling the Canal de Garonne which flows from Bordeaux to Toulouse. Average of 30 miles each day on the cycling days. The Garonne canal is perfect for cycling through France. Level gradient with traffic-free tracks, with great countryside the whole route. Our first day is spent in Bordeaux. This city is full of elegant quays and wine cellars. Great choice of art galleries, Gothic landmarks and excellent restaurants. Our cycling adventure starts on Sunday and passes through a wonderful landscape of chateaux and vineyards. Accommodation scheduled for each stage at very scenic towns with lots of facilities. The canal has many historic features with aqueducts, manors and original locks along the route. Highlights of the journey include the tomato capital of France: Marmande. We will visit Bastide towns (medieval walled towns full of history) as well as detours to vineyards for wine tasting. We will stay at Moissac, another fascinating town with its famous abbey. Our hotel is in a converted water mill. At Agen, the prune capital of France, we aim to visit the art gallery which boasts a collection of rare Goya paintings looted during the revolution from a nearby chateau. The planned route can incorporate detours to regional attractions including Buddhist centres and historic abbeys. On Friday, our final cycling day, we cycle from Montauban to Toulouse. After depositing the hired cycles, we can dine on the local speciality of Cassoulet to celebrate the cycling adventure. On Saturday before travelling back to the UK, we can explore Toulouse "La Ville Rose" the unofficial capital of Occitanie. Full of medieval cathedrals, towers and art galleries, Toulouse is also the HQ of Airbus (tours available) and the birthplace of the Concorde. We will collect the hired cycles at the start and drop them off at the end of the ride. Railway runs alongside canal so option to put cycle on train for a stage if reasons arise. Organiser will provide fuller itinerary to everyone booking. Refreshments Abundance of choices in each town and on route. Aim to arrange picnic lunch each day. Travel Direct flights to Bordeaux and from Toulouse to UK. Option to travel on Eurostar and TGV. Organiser will provide full details of choices. Accommodation Hostels and hotels for the 7 nights. We are seeking budget options for each stage. Organiser will provide full choices to everyone booking. Cost of the weekend is just £10 deposit which covers for group membership. Group membership is for 1 year and ALL walks are then free. To book please rsvp & mail [meetup@hawog.org.uk](mailto:meetup@hawog.org.uk) for payment link. Any questions mail [meetup@hawog.org.uk](mailto:meetup@hawog.org.uk) ,& please do NOT add comments. [](https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=51.47238%2C%20-0.45094)OT add comments.

Thames Life Cycling Group weekly ride

See https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cycling-group-tickets-433505435427 Booking required via organiser. Attempted bookings via Hubbub will not be processed.

Thames Life Cycling Group weekly ride

See https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cycling-group-tickets-433505435427 Booking required via organiser. Attempted bookings via Hubbub will not be processed.

Thames Life Cycling Group weekly ride

See https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cycling-group-tickets-433505435427 Booking required via organiser. Attempted bookings via Hubbub will not be processed.

23k Hike Hastings Rye with a swim in the sea. Departure from London Bridge

Sorry for the last minute organisation. We have just seen that the weather will be lovely tomorrow and will allow to swim in the sea! 23k hike between Hastings and Rye with around 600m ascent. We will visit both towns and will hike along the coast with a potential stop on a beautiful secret beach as the weather should be nice on the coast. This hike is not for beginners as the hike along the coast requires endurance and agility. Only confirmed hikers that can walk 20k in 5 hours on challenging ish terrain. Departure from London Bridge at 7:54 to Hastings Arrival in London Bridge from Rye at 21:41. Please bring hiking boots + adequate hiking clothes. Please also bring food for lunch and snacks for the hike with sufficient water for 5 hours. Please also bring a towel if you wish to swim in the sea. The price includes the guided hikes plus visit of Hastings and Rye along with the train ticket from and to London.

South Downs & Beachy Head - FREE RIDE: 22 Miles

As the Autumn Equinox occurs on the 23 September this is a fitting end to our season of summer rides, it's a **FREE** ride and a very popular one to boot! Starting at Eastbourne Station and incorporating a number of trails including part of the South Downs Way and the Seven Sisters Trail. With 2250ft of climbing this is an ideal route for the gravel enthusiast. You will need a gravel bike or MTB to cope with the off-road terrain. For those taking the train I would suggest the 8.31 from Clapham Junction arriving at 9.53am for a 10.00 start. For the return to London I suggest you book after 5pm from Eastbourne. There's various car parks in the area but should you wish to park at Eastbourne Station Car Park, the weekend daily rate is £5.40 and the address for your GPS is Commercial Road, BN21 3XE. The car park is operated by APCOA and can be paid for using the App. We should met at The Foundry coffee shop which used to be the old ticket office and is just outside the station. The ride starts from Eastbourne Station and we pedal out of town and onto the South Downs. We then head to the village of Wilmington to visit its church and the famous 1600 year old Yew tree. We then head up to the Long Man of Wilmington and its mysterious barrows. Wilmington is well known for its Druid community as Folklore treats the site as an energetic "epicentre" or crossing point of ancient trackways and ley lines, with some traditional beliefs associating the giant's staves with dowsing rods or cosmic alignment. Here's a short video on Wilmington in case you are interested in such matters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5qvWbGWEho After the uphill trek to the Long Man we cycle through the Lillington Nature Reserve to East Dean where we stop for lunch at The Tiger Inn. A lovely old pub with a great outside space for the bikes and delicious Appleshed Cider on tap. I highly recommend having some of their thick triple cooked chips. With lunch over there's a lovely downhill dash to the Birling Gap where we join the Southdowns Way to pedal up and along the cliff tops to Beachy Head. From Beachy Head it's a short ride to Eastbourne. We aim to arrive at Eastbourne around 4-4.30. CYCLING CAN BE DANGEROUS, YOU JOIN THIS RIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK

Finding Eric - Free Ride 39m

This is an impromptu FREE ride in honour of rock god Eric Clapton. Eric is a local hero who played at Richmond's Crawdaddy Club with the Yardbirds. He also played at Twickenham's Eel Pie Island with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. We are on holy ground where 'Clapton is God'. A little known fact is that Eric is also an enthusiastic cyclist and is often found cruising the Surrey Hills where he lives. Indeed cycling is an addiction that Eric has had for decades. On tour with his band Cream Clapton was looking to buy a racing bicycle when his roadie Mick Turner said out loud "look it's got them Disraeli Gears", a mispronunciation of Derailleurs. That became the title of Cream's second album in 1967! **Our road trip starts at 10am from Hampton Court Station** and meanders through Surrey to Eric Clapton's birthplace in Ripley. He grew up in Ripley, got married at the St Mary’s Church, and also held a funeral service there for his four-year-old son, Conor, who died after falling from the 53rd floor of a New York apartment building. On our ride we visit St Mary's to find the grave of Connor Clapton for whom Eric wrote Tears in Heaven. In the neighboring village of Chiddingfold Clapton famously played concerts at the Ex-Servicemen's Club, not to be confused with the Royal Albert Hall, in front of a packed 200-capacity crowd. These performances are available to view in their entirety on YouTube and are a glimpse into the past with sets from December in 1989, 2006 and 2007. Here's link to one of these concerts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ7tD5M1Z-s&list=RDEJ7tD5M1Z-s&start_radio=1 Our pilgrimage continues south but on the way we divert to visit the Lovelace Bridges which are a remarkable slice of Victorian engineering. Built in the 1860s by William King, 1st Earl of Lovelace of Horsley Towers, they formed part of a private network of tracks and bridges built of brick and used to move timber across his estate by horse and cart. This is definitely worth the diversion as we head to to Hurtwood Edge, Clapton's current home. As this is a discovery ride it is unclear how close we get to house but this is all part of the fun of it. We then head east towards the Downs Link and stop for a quick lunch at The Red Lion at Shamley Green. After lunch we head towards Guildford Station, our end destination, where we alight a train heading towards London. CYCLING CAN BE DANGEROUS SO YOU JOIN US AT YOUR OWN RISk