Here's this week's news & reports....

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RIDE REPORT
London Murals 11/01/09

There's a lot of community art in London and a high density of murals
in the Brixton and Stockwell area. 19 riders turned up at the library
car park on this much milder winter morning to have a look at them. We
were originally going to have a journalist join us for the ride but a
last minute change of plan meant a photo shoot and interviews at
Clapham Common bandstand cafe instead.

The murals were supposed to appear after the morning stop but I'd
overlooked the spray-painted one on Tooting Bec Common covering the
entire playground building. We stopped for a quick look and then
pushed on to Clapham, helped by a slight tailwind. 3 additional riders
were waiting along with the journalist who took some group photos and
had a chat with quite a few of us. I'll post a copy of the article
when it appears in the Surrey Comet / Guardian series of papers.

The first mural on Mauleveren Rd surprised almost everyone as it's an
unassuming residential street with a commercial property on one side.
The mural is massive but very faded after nearly 25 years. However, a
bigger surprise was round the corner as nobody had seen The Big Splash
before, an incredible work of art covering the entire gable wall of a
house, depicting the River Effra (currently hidden under Brixton) and
local people who had worked in the Doulton factory in the 50s.

This area of Brixton probably has more murals than Belfast although it
wasn't practical to see them all. We stopped briefly at Brixton
Academy, peered through the fence at a fantasy scene on a school wall
and rode past the legal graffiti walls on the Stockwell Park Estate.
The Slade Gardens mural at the adventure playground features kids who
played there when the painting was done. We emerged onto the A23 for a
couple of yards and then turned off at the Stockwell War Memorial, a
painted deep level shelter in the middle of a busy traffic junction.

London Cycle Network Route 3 took us along quiet backstreets and past
the Oval to Waterloo where we rode into the Leake Street tunnel. The
road has been closed for a while now but back in May, Banksy sealed it
off and 'curated' the Cans Festival featuring the best graffiti
artists from all over Europe. Once the event was over, the entire
tunnel became fair game for anyone to paint on. All the original art
has gone and the walls change weekly, ranging from a complete mess to
some pretty cool spray work. We saw at least 4 teams of artists
preparing to paint stuff without any fear of prosecution.

A quick tour of the central London sights (Big Ben, Westminster Abbey,
Horseguards Parade, Buck House etc) took us into Hyde Park for lunch.
There were far too many of us to try and find a pub but I didn't
consider that the Lido Cafe would also be pretty full. Fortunately,
we've all got enough layers on to enable us to sit outside.

As we approached the Lido Cafe, we all dismounted and walked only to
be passed by two Community Support Officers riding their bikes. As we
were preparing to leave, we'd assumed it would be ok to ride but
whilst one rider was trying out a trike, one of the humourless
Officers rode his bike over to tell us to dismount. He had absolutely
no answer at all as to why he should be setting such a bad example by
riding himself other than to say he was authorised to cycle whereas we
were not and compared himself to a police car attending an incident.
It's about time Royal Parks addressed their outdated attitude to
cycling, especially as the new rental bikes for Boris's version of
Velib are going to be positioned in the parks.

We'd intended to visit the Banksy before lunch but we ran out of time.
Trying to find a way through in the opposite direction was a nightmare
as we came up against a series of one-way streets and banned turns.
Frustratingly, we could see the building but couldn't get to it.
Eventually we worked out a way and pulled up outside the Post Office
building in Newman St, where Banksy has stencilled a young boy on a
ladder, painting a 3 story high slogan: One Nation Under CCTV. It's
right under a real CCTV camera and at the bottom, unfortunately
obscured by bins, is a stencil of a guard with a barking dog, simply
filming the lad painting the slogan. Unlike other Banksy stencils,
this one is completely intact because it's actually inside the fenced
off Post Office property. Nobody noticed it being painted!!

We spent far too long on busy central London streets trying to get
there so it was a relief to hit a straight series of quiet roads all
the way back to Hyde Park and again down to Chelsea Bridge where we
crossed over into Battersea Park and out the other side to see the
final mural of the day, a Brian Barnes one called Battersea In
Perspective, painted on the side of a pub in a residential street. A
plaque tells you who the characters are and pinpoints the places you
see from the aeriel perspective. We picked another LCN route back to
Clapham Common where we played safe and returned to the bandstand
cafe. Several riders left straight away to get home before dark. We
all hit a nasty headwind going back which made the final few miles a
bit tougher than they needed to be.

Out for 7hrs, 30 miles. See the pix on Flickr at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pollardshillcyclists/sets/72157612443649870
or
http://tinyurl.com/phc027



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CYCLE ROUTE LEAFLETS

Over the past few years, I've amassed quite a collection of
downloadable cycle route leaflets. There are well over 150 route
guides, mostly local to London and the South East, including a full
set of Capital Ring leaflets and a full set of Green Chain leaflets.
There are also lots of guides to various parts of the National Cycle
Network, lots of town centre cycle maps, the hard-to-find Wandle Trail
map and a couple of information leaflets about local places of
interest such as Riddlesdown. In the past, it has not been
particularly practical to share these but I've now found a free way of
distributing them as two large (82Mb & 36Mb!) zipped files. All you
need to do is click each link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?limqzdmoiyn
http://www.mediafire.com/?z2xnztenw2m

Obviously, you'll need a broadband connection for such a large files.
You don't need to sign up to Mediafire- it's a free service. If you're
looking for some new cycle routes, you'll probably find these to be
invaluable.

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NEW RIDES

Thanks for everyone who responded to the call for ride leaders - there
was a fantastic response. Rides until the end of March are now posted
on the website including some exciting new destinations made possible
by the new starting points. We'll be visiting Bookham Common, the
legendary Ace Cafe and we'll able able to ride to Brockham village
without needing to train-assist. We also have a very exciting event
planned for Feb 8th that we can't reveal at the moment.

It would be good to get some new leaders as it's the faithful old
guard who have sprung to the club's rescue. If you're not sure if you
can do it, why not lead one section of an existing ride? That way you
can get advice and support before you try your own ride. Without new
leaders, we're eventually going to find ourselves stuck for a ride at
some point so please try to help out if you can.

If you've got any suggestions for a ride, please email me (even if
you've already told me about it on a ride) and we'll try to do them at
some point.

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SOUTH LONDON CYCLISTS FORUM

It's back!!!! Many thanks to Jez who has not only fixed this but has
also added some colour. You may find that your settings have reverted
to default but you'll still be able to log in using the same user name
and password that you set up before.

One useful nugget that I found on there was that Lidl in Morden have
some cycling stuff in. You'd best be quick if you want anything as the
message was posted last Wednesday. There's absolutely nothing wrong
with any of the cycle clothing they sell and it's generally about 90%
cheaper than going to a bike shop.

Please make sure you use the forum regularly if you think it's a
useful facility. To start the ball rolling, I've launched an
end-of-year poll. Click through to cast your votes.

http://www.southlondoncyclists.org.uk

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NEXT WEEK

We're going to have a pootle around Windsor. There'll be a chance to
see Eton College, Windsor Castle and we'll be making good use of the
lightly trafficked Great Park. There are two meeting points. Wimbledon
riders should be at Wimbledon station for a 9am ticket buy and get the
9:17 train. Croydon riders should be at East Croydon station for an
8:50am ticket buy to get the 9:10 train. Don't be late for the ticket
buy or you won't be part of the Group Save which could get tickets as
low as a fiver. It's £1.50 cheaper from Wimbledon. We'll all be on the
same train after changing at Clapham Jct. Meet us outside Riverside
station at 10:15am if you're making your own way there. Full details
on the website.

Mark
PHC co-ordinator
07711 688189

http://www.pollardshillcyclists.org.uk
http://www.southlondoncyclists.org.uk