London Canal Ride — April 2006

A Sunday ride with Liam along the London canal network that turned into something much bigger than we'd bargained for. We started at Hammersmith Bridge and just kept going east — Little Venice, Paddington Basin, Regent's Canal winding through the park with zoo animals cropping up on our right, Camden, King's Cross, then the Islington Tunnel where you have to haul the bikes out and carry them around. City Road Lock came next, followed by Limehouse where the canal meets the Thames.

From there we decided to follow the river itself, heading east past the BT Teleport at North Woolwich and the Woolwich Ferry, all the way out to the Thames Barrier. One of those rides where you think you're done but you're really not — so we turned around and hammered back west along the south bank instead. The Quantum Cloud sculpture outside the O2 caught our eye, then Canary Wharf all gleaming in the afternoon light, and finally the Albert Embankment back to Vauxhall with the MI5 building sitting there imposing on the opposite bank. A proper circumnavigation of east London, the kind that leaves you wrecked and satisfied in equal measure.