Cutty Sark to Crawley on NCN21

I, ride leader Peter S, met Richard at Three Bridges station in time for the 07.55 stopping train to London Victoria. We could have got the 08.04 faster train but Richard had pre-ordered his ticket on the internet at a cost of £3.30 (using a network rail card). I bought my ticket on the day from the ticket window and paid £11.30. For the same ride – how does that work!? We arrived at Victoria in time for a coffee, before heading off down Victoria Street towards Parliament Square and Westminster Bridge at 9.15. There was very little traffic about and we made good time in nice weather with blue skies, although with a strong south-easterly breeze. There were large numbers of tourists around the Houses of Parliament but as we turned eastwards on National Cycle Route 4 alongside the Thames the streets got quieter again. At times it felt as if we were cycling through a movie set, for one of those films where some disaster had killed everyone off and we were the last cyclists left alive! It is quite interesting to try to follow the NCR4 – mostly you need to find the blue ‘stickers’ on lamp posts etc, and there are one or two locations where care needs to be taken as the turns are not always obvious, as you wind through the former docklands of our industrial heritage. Fortunately Richard had a Garmin GPS in which he had plotted the route which bleeped at us if we diverged from the allotted route. I had all of the TFL paper maps as well, so we didn’t actually get lost this time. I think that I had visited the whole route in the past, but this journey was the first one where we had followed the route precisely in its entirety. It was also pleasing to note that some sections had been improved since we last passed this way.

This is a view looking upstream from Greenwich - the tall, thin chimney-like object in the middle of the picture is in fact The Shard at London Bridge, about three miles away!


We arrived at the Cutty Sark but barely recognised it as the whole area appears to have been dug up and cordoned off for some major works; not quite sure what the outcome will be but hopefully it will improve this lovely spot by the river. Shortly after 10.15 we departed south on the NCR21. This is the route that originates in Greenwich and heads south, via Gatwick Airport and Crawley to Eastbourne where it terminates. Our plan was to follow it, almost to the letter, as far as Three Bridges and home. We have done this a few times now and know the sections that are tricky to navigate, as well as a stretch through New Addington that is well worth missing out, so we set off confidently.

And we had no navigational problems at all, passing a pleasant couple of hours in the company of many other cyclists and walkers – the route was quite busy in places – to arrive at the Bear in Fickleshole. I was able to text home – ‘Arrived at the Bear. No Men Behaving Badly. Except Bob, of course.’ On a previous visit we had talked with Neil Morrissey who frequents this popular pub, but no sign of him today. Although we were sitting outside in pleasant sunny weather, the sandwich bar was not open and we had to select leek and potato soup from the starters menu. It is a shame when pub’s stop doing sandwiches on Sundays. But the beer was first class and only 3.8%! We had a pleasant lunch watching the executive jets taking off from nearby Biggin Hill – it was just like being at home in Crawley!



The afternoon’s ride had a lot more off-road riding and gradually exposed us to the full strength of the wind. So it all got a bit tougher especially as we climbed across the A22 and up the north downs to the magnificent viewpoint north of Caterham, where we took a short break to update Facebook status etc!!! We could see the planes landing and taking off in the distance – strangely going the ‘wrong way round’ due to the easterly winds. It was here that the battery expired on my phone so the automatic tracking of the route ceased at about 33 miles.

From the Downs the route back is pretty straight forward as we regained home ground, and it also gets flatter, but with more exposure to the wind.

We dutifully stuck exactly to the NCR21 all the way to North road in Three Bridges where we followed the NCR20 to Furnace Green and Maidenbower. Total distance was 54 miles so a bit less than the advertised 60 miles arriving back at about 16.30. But the route did exactly what it said on the tin taking us through parts of central London and then, seemingly magically, to the countryside again. It was quite hilly in places and made harder by the wind, although we were lucky to have sunshine and pleasant temperatures all day. Thank you to everyone that joined the trip. We hope that we will see you all again soon. And if you fancy this very interesting, unusual and varied route watch out for it.

Here's a link to Google maps that shows the exact ride route from Victoria Station to The Cutty Sark and then down as far as the North Downs:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?mpa=0&ctz=-60&mpf=0&vps=4&jsv=375b&ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=205480741451912466805.0004affdccd87ff212dc8

Next weeks ride (Sunday October 30th) starts from Horsham Pavilion in the Park at 09:30 hrs and will head West from Horsham with a lunch stop at The Foresters Arms in Kirdford. Don't forget the clocks go back on Saturday night/Sunday morning so you'll get an extra hour in bed.