Yesterday I had a meeting at the offices of the group's favourite newspaper, so I got the train in and having decided it was going to be a nice day, grabbed the Brompton. They're obviously very liberal because security didn't blink when I handed them a Brompton (a lot of places still get sniffy, like I'm handing them a big metallic bomb turd).
Anyway, it didn't feel that hot when I left about 4.30pm so I was enticed into a long circuitous and circumlocutory journey home that took me up through Islington, around Little Stokey, through the wilds of Hackney and the marshy badlands south of Walthamstow, and then down, down, down to Tower Bridge and points south (it was at this point I noted the headwind and why going north had been so easy), the many splendours of Peckham, the sylvan glades of Forest Hill and Sydenham (the beast is evidently in abeyance), and then to the mighty gleaming spires of Croydonia. Is there any sight more beautiful to behold the the Croydon skyline? Eat that Manhattan. Pedalling frantically to avoid being eaten by native Croydonites onwards to Purley (the vampires won't be out in that kind of sun). Then a long clamber up to the heights of Kenley airfield. I confess that after nearly four hours, much of it into a giant wind-tunnel that seemed to be connected directly to the Sahara, I was relieved to finally freewheel back down from the North Downs. After a final climb up the hill and driveway, I collapsed and lay there for a bit until the cats started to try and lick the salt off me. Eight pints of water, one bath, and a gin-based restorative, I could almost walk again. I think I overdid it a bit. It's a true fact that a Brompton has no useful gear for pedalling into a headwind. Or an engine.