It brings me great joy to share that this year's non-essential ride will be taking place Friday, 22 March, 2024 at 10pm.
5th Anniversary Edition
4th Anniversary 5th EditionDate: Friday, 22 March 2024
Start Time: 22:00
Distance: 164 km
Climb: 1,086m
Start:
Victoria Station car park (meet opposite bike racks at car park entrance to Victoria Place mall - see
Google Street view))
Food stop:
McDonald's, Bow FlyoverFinish: Victoria station car park. Remember to stop your GPS before heading off for the sake of the strava art community.
ROUTEhttps://ridewithgps.com/routes/45474085T.L.D.R.An urban audax to see London as you've never seen it (unless you joined a prior year), as an introduction to endurance riding, or practise your first overnight ride in the warm embrace of this great city. There are plenty of places open to stop and eat, or mingle with the locals (see the route map).
OUTBREAKIn mid-March 2020 we heard that Barclays was sending their employees home - this must be serious. 28 lockdowns later, Bojo would announce “we are past the peak”. This ride seeks to replicate what it was like for us exercise-inclined during those unprecedented times. A bit weird... empty streets... circuitous. Staying local was a legal requirement. Non-essential travel was shamed.
Accepting the guilt that if I rode outside the M25 I could be “hit by a car and take an ambulance from someone who needed it”, I set about creating and sourcing local London routes. If I were hit by a car locally, at least I could crawl to a nearby hospital, or maybe the driver would take me there if they were nice. The
London Fixed Beers missions were a particular highlight for me—giving riders a curated tour of London’s inner boroughs, while taking advantage of the empty streets (but for the ominous queues starting to form outside shops).
I rode the first version of this bored strava art project in April 2020, and one year later extended the route with the needle in commemoration of the vaccine arriving. Ironically, as I rode down the Mall while tracing “the needle”, I rode straight through an anti-vaccine protest. I've continued to ride it every year since. Let's just say it's got sentimental value.
Touring London’s empty boroughs turned out to be quite nice. But daylight scenes, reminiscent of Danny Boyle’s apocalypse flick 28 Days Later, are unlikely to repeat themselves, and I don’t want to lose half a lung riding 100 miles through London traffic. So the tradition continues at night.
ENTRY FEEThere is no entry fee, but I encourage a £10 donation to the
Lewisham Bank of Things. You might think of LBT as a Food Bank, but instead of food, they provide everyday necessities to young people. When I think of lockdown I think of how hard it was on some or most people. I was extremely lucky.
Upon donation, please
sign up to the ride using this form 
FINISHThis ride is not validated by any organisation. I won’t be publishing a list of finishers anywhere but I will record you as having completed it for my own records. Don't forget to meet for breakfast at Gianni's afterwards to chat about bikes and stuff.
RIDE REPORTS
Arrivee issue 156 Summer 2022 - by Pete Davis
YACF 2023 ride reports - various
AUDAX UKI normally register the ride as a DIYSE Group Perm, and will endeavour to do the same again this year. Details on how to register your DIY with Audax UK will be shared prior to the ride.Hope to see you out there on hopefully not too chilly of a March night (if January is anything to go by, it will be balmy). Please share with anyone who might be interested - it's for a good cause and good craic!
SPONSOR NEWS!I am very grateful to Andrew at
ORB.bike (
@orb.bike) for contributing one of their newly released
Orb MKII illuminating water bottles to raffle off among those riders who successfully complete the ride. When I saw this bottle hit the market, the message hit home to me - what better way to add additional visibility to yourself when night-riding or commuting home after work. I've never hesitated less before hitting purchase on a piece of bike kit. I'm really happy to have met Andrew recently riding the TCR and was overjoyed that he thought London Lockdown the ideal ride for what I think is a work of art (I'll be rocking mine on Friday). Please email me a link to your completed ride (e.g. Strava profile) from the event and you will be entered into the raffle. When Andrew's not super busy race directing the Transcontinental, him and his pals design cool bike tech like the MKII and these
Droid anti-theft lights - please check them out (not to mention his wheel business
Zolla wheels too (
@zolla.cc) and of course
Lost Dot (
@thetranscontinental).
2ND SPONSOR! Mistral GamesIt was a pleasure to open an email from David S last night, not only signing up for London Lockdown tomorrow, but also contributing a 2nd raffle prize. David and Mistral Games have designed Race to Ventoux, a board game about just that! But less perspiring hopefully. Thank you, David, for creating what looks like a beautifully crafted board game and contributing a copy to the raffle!
David has a few copies for sale - reach out to him on
Instagram
TOILET NEWS!Andrew D has kindly brought to my attention a paid-24 hour toilet (50p? so bring change) at the southside Greenwich Foot tunnel (
google street view), opposite the Cutty Sark ship (km 74.3). I’ve added a POI and turn-by-turn reminder to the route files.
