MTB ride Saturday 12th December. 33 miles.

A few spots of rain as I arrived at The Organ Inn pub our starting point.

The group was lead by Paul Kelly, with Bob Green, Trevor Hughes, Barry Gregory and me following his route.

We left the area via Ewell Mill and soon found some good, heavy mud to clog the bikes up with.

Following the Hogsmill River we arrived in Kingston Upon Thames and then under Kingston Bridge to Teddington Lock and then turned off towards Richmond Park.

We followed the outer cycle path anti clock wise in the park. At this point in the ride we cycled across some pea shingle that added to the mud on the wheels from earlier, and on to Robin Hood Gate, then turned to climb towards the Pen Ponds. On the way to Pembrooke Lodge we added a good layer of sand to our mud and pea shingled wheels. I thought I was getting tired until I discovered, mud, pea shingle and sand - perfect "Wattle and Daub." Consquently, the bike was gradually grinding to a halt with the thick solid building material we had accidentally made over the last 17 miles! The tyres had gone from 2.25 dia to about 4.50 dia with the huge amounts of mud collected.

The mud on the bike was soon removed by Mr kelly's "specialist bike tool", a tree branch!

At Pembrooke Lodge Paul Kelly pointed out King Henry's Mound.

Direct from wikipedia (Hedumacation and Culture).

King Henry VIII's Mound is the highest point within the park and is located within the public gardens of Pembroke Lodge. It is named after Henry VIII of England.

There is speculation that the mound has an older history, and may have originally been a barrow.

From the Mound there is a protected view of St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London over 10 miles (16 km) to the east which was established in 1710. (A telescope is installed on the mound, for a better viewing experience.) This vista is protected by a 'dome and half' width of sky on either side. The Mayor of London (Ken Livingstone) sought to overturn this protection in 2005, and reduce it to 'half a dome'. No final decision is yet public. To the west is a panorama of the Thames Valley.



Well you didn't expect me to remember that lot did you!




The view towards Heathrow and Runnymead.

Close.

Closer.

Closest, alas my pocket camera isn't able to catch St Paul's very well, but you can see it just about!

From here we dropped back down to the Thames at Ham House, and followed the river up to Teddington Lock. I thought I'd better add to the "Hedumacation and Culture" by stating I thought there was a plaque on the lock building to commemorate the "Fish Slapping" sketch for Monty Python's Flying Circus, so we went to look for it, and sure enough we found it along with some other very interesting historical plaques.

Proper topnotch Heros.

The lock building from the famous sketch between Michael Palin and John Cleese.

Mr Palin ended up in the lock you may recall.

The Plaque.

It was then on and across the foot bridge at Teddington to Bushey Park for another bit of "Hedumacation and Culture" in the way of the Bushey Park water gardens. These have just been refurbished.

All that culture put us all in need a coffee and food, so we headed to the cafe in the park for our tea stop.

We headed back towards Kingston Bridge and once across, Paul Kelly left the group heading for Wimbledon, and we retraced our steps to Ewell via the back streets avoiding the mud we'd encountered earlier.

Paul Isambard White