So wouldn't it be great if we could still use the Letsride.co.uk website to publicise this ride. However, there's a problem - this website belongs to British Cycling and can only be used for some of our rides and not all of them - and this year the Christmas Day ride has drawn the short straw!
But, like Baldrick, we have a cunning plan. The technology behind the Letsride.co.uk website is now out in the open. It is available in a free easy-to-use open source package called Drupal 11. This supports an Entity Registration Module. If it can be customised to collect shoe sizes for a bowling event, surely it can be used to collect faces for a social cycle ride.
There are alternatives, but Meetup hides most faces behind a paywall, Facebook only shows the faces of "friends", RiderHQ only shows names and Eventbrite and LCC show no information at all about attendees.
To register on this website, you will first need to apply for an account at https://cyclistsinsouthwark.org.uk/user/register. Please note that submitting a face when making a booking is not compulsory, as we can use a default one.
The ride will start at 11.00am from the Southwark Needle, 1 Tooley St, London SE1 2PF, home of Southwark Cyclists.
On Christmas Day it is customary for cyclists from London's many and diverse boroughs (and even beyond!) to assemble at the Southwark Needle to do a cycle tour of some of London's lesser-known but still iconic sites.
These include the "Mother Goose" Church, the French Ordinary Court Tunnel, Beehive Passage, Leadenhall Market, Jamaica Wine House, the Old Curiosity Shop, the Upside-down Globe, Seven Dials and, although not lesser-known, The Mall.
The ride owes its existence to Barry Mason, the erstwhile Coordinator of Southwark Cyclists, who inaugurated it in 2001. Barry died in 2011, but he left a lasting legacy by single-handedly transforming Southwark Cyclists into the most active and exciting of all the LCC borough groups.
Once we reach Edgware Road, 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 9 mile route can be downloaded from here: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/44864435.
The Komoot link is: https://www.komoot.com/tour/1944257004.
Everyone welcome. 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)
