“Awayday” ride on Dec 4th, 2021. Ride Leader Jamie

Photos by Jean and Jane

Reoprt based on comments from Ride Leader Jamie, following the second Awayday Healthy Ride.

We managed to visit Teddington Lock, Ham Common, Richmond Park Lakes, Pembroke Gardens, the Roebuck pub / viewpoint, circumnavigate the entire Park perimeter, Ham House, ride the northern river path into Richmond (despite parts of it being submerged by the high springs tide), cross Richmond Bridge, ride the southern river path past Marble Hill, observe Eel Pie Island, walk along the medieval market street and still finish back at Twickenham Station by 3.45pm having covered about 20 miles, phew! We were incredibly lucky with the stunning winter sunshine and Pembroke Lodge provided an excellent lunch for us all in gorgeous surroundings. Your photos are absolutely superb and have captured the day perfectly.

Jamie further comments: One thing I do know is that the recurring Covid variants and the Royal Parks regulations have one thing in common: I am heartily fed-up with them both. The Royal Parks recent decision to ban civilised cyclists from vast areas of Richmond Park by blaming them for path erosion seems most unreasonable. Threatening users with a £60 fine for trespass whilst their signage is blatantly inadequate is probably unenforceable. We SC cyclists are very mindful that pedestrians always rightly have priority. The Royal Parks attempt to separate pedestrians from responsible cyclists in all their parks seems to have generated an unpleasant attitude that we have all recently experienced in Hyde Park, Windsor Great Park and Richmond Park.

Details of the route (and see image of Strava track). Ride commenced at Waterloo Station at 9.30 am. Train to Twickenham, then follow river south (on road) to Teddington Lock, cross Thames and follow path inland, then road up to Ham Gate. Circuit of the park, diversion on to top of Richmond Hill, lunch stop at Pembroke Lodge, longer diversion to the lake. Exit park at Ham gate then pick up Ham Avenues path to Ham House. Follow Thames path to Richmond, cross Richmond Bridge and take Thames path on the other bank past Marble Hill to Twickenham and the train back to Waterloo.

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