London to Southend bike ride

On Sunday I took part in the annual London to Southend bike ride for British Heart Foundation.

It was another early start to meet for 6.30am to ride into London to Victoria park for the start of the ride to Southend.  What I love about this ride is that it has a huge attendance from my cycling club Romford CC (including an honorary member who joins us every year from Stafford CC) and also my secondary club Hornchurch CC and also local triathlon club Havering Tri.  A large group of us rode to the start together and that is how we intended to continue on the day.

The ride is one of my favourites of the year. It runs through Woodford and Chigwell before joining what is part of one of our club routes, then heads out to Hanningfield reservoir before nearing Southend.  It is a really nice route with a few climbs but mostly flat and some nice quick sections through the Essex countryside.  It is suitable for all abilities and one I would highly recommend.

I am proud to say I am friends with so many people from all three clubs and it is amazing that we come together on this ride and help each other.  There are far too many of us to ride as one but we break into smaller groups and ride together and meet at the finish.

We are three groups of people who are happy to work together to help achieve the same goal – amazing team work!

We meet at the end of the ride in Priory Park and this photo just goes to prove that Havering really has some great clubs and I am proud to be part of that.  Look at these happy smiling faces, it says it all!

In order to clock up more miles I joined a number of club members for the ride home as well, which ended up taking in what seemed to be most of the roundabouts in Essex before having a quick stop at Thorndon country park cafe for cake and ice cream (we’d earned it after all).

Next ride for a lot of us is the Prudential Ride London in two weeks time and I will be pleased to see all their faces again at the end!