I rode out to the meetpoint at Cutty Sark Gardens, not really expecting anyone to turn up for this ride. It was bitterly cold, with a freezing easterly blowing up the river and flakes of snow were falling. I had already received three messages from people who had thought earlier in the week, they would come, saying they had thought better of it. However, London cyclists are obviously pretty tough as 7 hardy souls arrived, looking keen and eager to get started. So we headed off on familiar ground along the river, thankfully heading west so the bitter wind was at our backs. And once moving, the blood flows and the body warms up. I was toasty warm the whole ride- thanks to several layers, my heatholder socks I got for Christmas and my walking gloves with merino liners. 
Coming off the river, we walked a bit of Tooley St which is in various changing stages of being dug up at the moment, then headed over London Bridge into a massive jam due to the closure of Cannon St. But once past this, the City was its usual calm, peaceful weekend self. Very little traffic. We made our way over Old St and into Islington, up long elegant Georgian terraces, then down onto the westerly section of the Regent Canal. The cold weather had deterred many of the usual folk from venturing out on their usual Sunday stroll along the towpath and into Camden Lock. So it was pleasant to ride along with much less need to tingle bells and squeeze and squash. 
Through the zoo, where the noise from the aviary was particularly loud and hyenas skulked on the other side, eyeing us suspiciously as we passed. Some of the birds come down quite close to the towpath. 
You have to leave the canal after walking through a particularly crowded mooring and cross Lisson Grove, before rejoining a few minutes later on the other side of Edgware Road. Most of the canal boats have at least one brightly coloured bike somewhere on deck. 
Then it’s a short jaunt to Paddington and then into the park.
We did not spend long in the park, leaving it at the Brook St crossing to head through Mayfair, Soho and Covent Garden, where we decided to stop for lunch, earlier in the route then planned, but a bit later in the day. Food is even more necessary and appreciated in this cold weather. Then back on the bikes through Bloomsbury and along the great little Tavistock Rd bike path. Our plan had been to take a swift tour of Clerkenwell and the City on the way back, but one of us had a flat, and it was beginning to get really cold. Above us, the sky looked ominously full of snow, or something else extremely cold and wet, so we headed down to Farringdon Rd and Blackfriars Bridge instead.
From there we joined up various cycle paths to take a very quiet and pleasant route through parks and estates through New Cross, Deptford and back to Greenwich, including the new Bridgehouse Meadows path, complete with underpasses beneath the railway, which links up other paths to create some very useful routes that criss cross Lewisham safely.
I really enjoyed the day, having set out thinking it might be too cold a day to have fun. I was proved wrong- thanks to everyone who came.
My next ride will be a Kent country ride- probably train assisted. March 9th