Pounding city roads, I tend to forget all those things about riding in the country - mud, thorns, mud, vague junctions, mud, no signs, mud, pitch darkness and mud.
Did I mention mud?
Good Ride Report, though, Ian.
As for us - well, I've not taken the same route home twice this week. A different house to look at each day - Monday, Forest Hill; Tuesday, Streatham; last night, well...
It was an interesting ride. I took my normal route to Tooting, where a neatly choreographed set of cars failed in their concerted attempts to wipe me out. But I was a bit shaken, so I stopped in at home for ten minutes. Then onward, up to Rose Hill.
Well, I say 'up', and I'm sure it was a frightful grind when I did it before, but short of the scrap-magnet that is Mitcham, it was a pleasant ride. Up a hill from the Wandle, i suppose, but, when a chap on a hybrid zipped past me after I'd changed into ridiculously-low-gear in anticipation of the steep rise that never actually happened, I faced facts, changed up, and followed, arriving at the ugly Rose Hill roundabout in good time. Which was where I needed to check the map, but a quick call to reassure Butterfly I was close by sufficed, and, only briefly baffled by the lack of roadsigns into taking the wrong exit, I was on my way.
On my way where, though? It was a classic council estate - one of those with the big green spaces in the middle of dual carriageway roads, albeit a single lane in each direction. Not unpleasant, but some of the character could be guessed from the burned out scooter in a layby and the ubiquituous disintegrating Fords on driveways, as well as the odd sofa in a front garden.
The house itself was quirky but small, and quite filthy. Not for us, really - even for the comedy value of putting Our Kid in a bedroom that was pinker than Barbie's dreams.
Riding back, we avoided Mitcham, and took some reasonably fast roads down the hill. Then, on a whim, Butterfly went into Morden Hall Park, and we made our way gingerly through the reedbeds, and across the tramway to the Wandle Trail, which we followed to within a few hundred metres of our front door. I must remember when cycling with Butterfly to take the brighter lights!
We saw very few people en route, though one of them was a cyclist riding without his front light on. Curious, especially approaching the boggy bits, where the paths are quite tricky to see, or the sharp turn off the wooden bridge, where the earth has fallen away from the inside of the turn, promising a closer encounter with the river than had been planned for the unwary.
Good ride. And great company. Tea on our return. What could be better?