Wow! What a great ride! Really interesting with plenty to see.

I met Martin at Three Bridges station and we caught the 09:12 train to London Bridge. John H. met us there and we set off east along Tooley Street before turning left to cross the Thames on Tower Bridge. Keeping left we dismounted to walk down to the river onto the Thames Path and walked past the Tower of London.

Back on our bikes we cycled through St. Katherines Dock before using various small lanes and the Thames Path to arrive at the Limehouse Basin. Taking Northey Street, we arrived at a small park with a circular path which led us onto the Limehouse Cut. This is a canal running roughly northeasterly which took us onward to the Lea valley. The towpath was a bit narrow in places but we negotiated it without incident. Cycling along we were surrounded by new build apartments looking out on the canal and old industrial units which completely turned their backs on the canal.

As we emerged into the Lea Valley, the views opened out and the amount of vegetation started to increase. The path stayed with the canal or ‘navigation’ whilst the river meandered around a bit further east. Fortunately John was confident in his routing and we didn’t make any mistakes following the route. To our right, through a high wire mesh security fence, we could see the Olympic park taking shape. The main stadium is pretty impressive and I think I also saw either the swimming Pool or the Cycling Arena nearing completion. A feature of this part of the ride was that there were several channels leading from the main canal into the Olympic Park area, but they were all blocked off by booms formed of several large drums with viciously spiked discs in between each drum, all painted bright yellow. I don't think they want any river traffic "accidentally" making it's way into the Park.

By now we were heading up through Hackney and under the A12 though it was becoming harder to believe we were still in London. The green spaces were opening out and near Lea Bridge I spotted a Heron ( at 51.573109,-0.056447 to be precise).

We’d seen plenty of narrow boats so far but now they were lining the bank and their owners/residents were enjoying the early morning sun. To our right there were now a series of reservoirs but all we could see of them were the grassy banks forming their western edges. Leaving Tottenham we went under the North Circular road and alongside another two, large but invisible to us, reservoirs. The cycling was easy on a pressed grit surface with the main hazard being the frequent pedestrians suffering from either deafness, blindness, stupidity or all three. At times, in the bright sunlight, it was possible to see the bottom of the canal the water was so clear and there was certainly plenty of wildlife (both plant and animal) on it.

We’d maintained quite a high and steady pace and had now gone under the M25 to finally get clear of London. Cheshunt was to our left and Cheshunt station was a mere third of a mile away but we couldn’t actually see either – it felt like we were in the middle of open countryside. The next stretch featured marshland to the east, but the path remained firm and dry. Another feature of this ride is the works associated with the river and canal. At Dobbs Weir we traversed a narrow bridge with a great view of the river/canal tipping over three triangular finger like weirs. The water was very clear with plenty of vegetation growing on its bed

Soon after we found ourselves going past Rye House – a go-kart track but we also saw some Speedway bikes and riders at a circuit next to it. Now, with the railway unobtrusively ever present to our left, we were nearing the end. Martin had just pointed out how many small flies there were and I’d just brushed a load off my arm and we both noticed them hitting surface of the water. However, it was actually raindrops making the ripples and a very brief and to be honest, not at all wetting, shower passed over us. It could have set in stronger, we wouldn’t have been bothered as we had now arrived at Ware and pulled up at John’s apartment overlooking the canal.

First thing he did was put the oven on ready for the pizzas, second was to get us each a beer –we’d earned them.

This was such a good ride that I'm planning to do it again in August or perhaps September.

Next weeks ride takes us to the Sun Inn at Dunsfold. Starting from Horsham Park Pavilions at 09:00hrs, this ride will be led by Mick and is rated as Medium because it will be nearly 60 miles. This will be a lovely ride and will finish sometime around 16:00 or so.