Our site now operates in a similar way to the letsride.co.uk website. To register for a ride, you first have to sign up for an account at https://cyclistsinsouthwark.org.uk/user/register. You can set up a user profile picture which will be shown against the rides you have booked for. When you book your name appears immediately in an event’s Registration Table, but faces will only appear after a back end cron job has run, which happens every hour.
Join in with the festive fun by cycling down to London Bridge and taking part in our cycle tour of a selection of London's lesser-known but still iconic sites.
Not everyone has large family gatherings to attend on Christmas Day and this will an opportunity for those who don't to meet up with other like-minded people and experience the joy of Christmas.
We will be cycling past "Mother Goose" Church, the French Ordinary Court Tunnel, the All Hallows Staining Tower, Beehive Passage, Leadenhall Market, the Old Curiosity Shop, the Upside-down Globe, Covent Garden, Chinatown, the John Snow Pump, Carnaby Street and the Berkeley Square Dinosaur Sculpture.
This ride starts at 11.00am at the Southwark Needle, 1 Tooley St, London SE1 2PF. It finishes at Edgware Road, where we stop off for a very reasonably priced Christmas Day Lunch at one of the Lebanese restaurants, which are open as normal on Christmas Day.
The 8 mile route can be downloaded from here: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/49302524.
The Komoot link is: https://www.komoot.com/tour/1989615122.
This ride is the 24th Christmas Day ride in a series that was inaugurated in 2001 by Barry Mason.
Barry Mason died in 2011, but finding a replacement for him was fraught with difficulty. There have been a few candidates willing to take over and run the Christmas Day ride, but where are they now?
When Pope Clement IV died in 1268, it took three years to elect a replacement and even then this only happened because the magistrates of Viterbo locked the cardinals in, reduced their rations to bread and water, and removed the roof of the Palazzo dei Papi di Viterbo where the election took place.
The same theme has been taken up and elaborated in the recent Conclave film:
Much of what is said in the film applies equally well to the cycling community:
- Rumour spreads with one and a quarter billion souls watching.
- It seems the responsibility for the conclave falls upon you.
- The supervision of this election is a duty I never thought I would have to perform.
- The men who are dangerous - are the ones that do want it.
- Although we sisters are supposed to be invisible, God has nevertheless given us eyes and ears.
- You should be careful Thomas.
- It is a war - and you have to commit to a side.
Everyone is welcome on the ride. You don’t have to be a member of anything to attend - but it helps!
Ride Leader: Nigel Bee (tel: 07415 315 690, email: nigel.bee@cyclistsinsouthwark.org.uk)
