I have stolen that headline, but it just seems so right.
We cycled along part of the Wandle Way today. We cycled to Earlsfield and joined it there, following it all the way to (near) Mitcham Junction from where we caught a train to Balham - which really is a gateway to the south, I'm surprised nobody's ever thought of describing it so.
It was really fun being out - over four hours, including a pint at the William Morris in Merton Abbey Mills and a coffee outside the cinema in Balham. Some of the route is extraordinarily rural - heading off through the woods, fighting off the midges (I think I swallowed a couple, and gagged a few more), wheeling through the fallen leaves.
In other places we had a strange juxtaposition of trees and a rural feel on one side, and a highly industrial urbanscape on the other. We found ourselves on National Trust property - Morden Hall Park - which may be worth revisiting for an hour or so one day.
I feel really good after the exercise. It was the first time really we have cycled anywhere with a purpose, rather than heading fora common or park and cycling round like big kids.
I do have several criticisms of the Wandle Way. The first one is the map. It's so busy being twee and seemingly user-friendly, it's not much better than a chocolate fireguard. We didn't help ourselves by going in the 'wrong' direction but nevertheless the map should have been sufficiently easy to follow that we didn't need to keep referring to the A-Z. It's also very badly signed. Many of the signs that show it's the Wandle Way are positioned along stretches where there are no turns or junctions. Many of the turns or junctions are completely without signs, so we took a few wrong turnings. Also, sometimes where there are signs, they have been twisted round to face the wrong way.
Colliers Wood/Merton Abbey Mills was a bit a nightmare, trying to work out how to get from Wandle Park past Savacentre and on the way to the City Farm. Really grotesque arrangement of roads, designed for the car and sod the pedestrian etc. I can't work out why there are cycle paths on the pavements near the crossings that suddenly peter out into nothingness. It's all very well putting green bikes next to the green man, but the only logical progress is to cycle on the pavement, which is technically illegal (except where marked for cycling, which it wasn't).
I was annoyed at the entrance to one of the small woods - Poulter Park. There was a very tight chicane at the entrance which was extremely difficult to manoeuvre a bike round. I also thought it would be nigh on impossible to get a pram or a twin buggy through it. Looking again at the map it might be that there is a separate entrance for cyclists, but it wasn't obvious from the signs, and, as I say, the map is more an artist's sketch than anything usable. So, sorry if we unwittingly cycled on a dedicated footpath, but it wasn't our fault.
I also found that I took very few photographs. Partly because, although woods and trees are nice to look at and traverse, they don't make for exciting photos. And also because it would have necessitated frequent stopping which makes cycling a drag.
Despite having been serviced just two days ago, Jimmy's bike is playing up again. I didn't realise until we were cycling away from Balham, so the poor dear was a lot more knackered than me!
