On Friday, I had an appointment to meet building surveyors at my old flat in London (currently rented out to a friend). Taking the Brompton would get around the evening rush hour restrictions on full-size bicycles, so I decided to make a day of it and stop off in central London for a visit to the new Brompton Junction shop/cafe/workshop in Covent Garden.
I took my Carradice Stockport bag and it's a good thing I did: the day started grey and chilly but very quickly turned warm and sunny, so I was shedding layers of clothing at an astonishing rate and needed somewhere to stash everything!
Friday was also the first day of the Errandonnee challenge. My cycling on the day provided ample fodder for two Errandonnee submissions.
Date: Friday, 7 March 2014
Category: Bike Shop
Destination: Brompton Junction LDN, 76 Long Acre, Covent Garden, London
Distance: 4.2 km
Steed: Lucy the Brompton
What I learned/observations:
1. The London School of Economics has converted a private yard in the very traditional and conservative Lincolns Inn Fields into a positive pasture of bicycle parking!
2. Brompton Junction is: compact, clever and cool -- much like the Brompton bicycle itself.
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| Brompton parking spaces - how clever is this? Locks provided. |
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| The main 'showroom' at ground level - eye candy of all sorts. |
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| 1970s prototypes on display in the basement. |
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| Ingenious, but not exactly elegant. |
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| Rudimentary hinge design. |
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| A bit clunky altogether. |
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| Take a seat at the cafe bar. |
3. Some Brompton owners know no bounds when it comes to customisation. This chromed beauty had to come to the Brompton specialists after a local bike shop managed to lose some bearings while carrying out a service!
4. Bike shops totally GET good coffee. And the need for free WiFi.
And best of all, just as I was gathering my things to leave, who should appear but The5MileCyclist! Cue another half hour chatting and laughing over bicycles and all the fun there is to be had. (Should have had another coffee!)
Errandonnee #2
Date: Friday, 7 March 2014
Category: Work (as my property rental makes me 'self-employed' for tax purposes!)
Destination: Mitcham
Distance: 7.8 km
Steed: Lucy the Brompton
What I learned/observations:
1. Being out and about by bicycle is the best way to bump into friends -- even in a city as large as London. As I boarded the train at City Thameslink and began to fold my Brompton, a man seated in the space allocated to full-size bicycles said my name. It was Paul, a cycling instructor I knew from my Southwark Cyclist days. He usually teaches in Croydon so this encounter was truly serendipitous -- he was on his way from a meeting in Barnes to another in Herne Hill. What a remarkable coincidence. It was nice to have a brief catch-up. He was accompanied by a brand new steed: a Scott e-bike. I really should have got a photo of that.
2. The 1960s social engineering disaster that was the Heygate Estate is one step closer to total demolition.
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| view of northern side of estate from train stopped at Elephant & Castle station |
3. When travelling by Brompton, some things never change! :)
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| Waiting for a train. |
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