30 July 2012

A Hilly Ride through North London

It's been difficult to find time for our weekend rides lately while Alberto is in the final stages of his PhD, but on Sunday we managed to squeeze in a quick but effective route through the hills of North London.

View over North London
You may have heard about an important international sporting event that's going on in London right now (more on that in future blog posts!). One of the happy consequences for us is that, away from the actual venues, the streets of London are quieter than usual as people are afraid of all the crazy traffic. This, combined with the normal Sunday morning lull, meant that we could go for a ride straight from our doorstep without too much trouble.

Alberto loaded up our computers with his 30km North London Hills route and we headed out about 7:30am. We headed up Swains Lane and then for a tour around the neighbourhoods of North London and their many many hills. I've always been quite intimidated by the hills to the north of us, but actually they were okay - the right amount of challenge without needing to get off and walk at any point. Actually, the downhills were scarier with all the potholes on the roads and the need to be prepared to stop at any point for traffic lights or other obstacles.

Cresting the hill at Ally Pally
Towards the end of the ride we headed up to Alexandra Palace to find some Olympic Banners and a great view of London in the sun. Then it was mostly downhill to home just after 9am, so Alberto could get started with his work. We felt even more smug when heavy downpours came through at about 1pm and didn't let up all day!

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