On a bright but very cool morning 8 of us met for an unusual urban bike ride to Camden Market: Adrian Brearley, Andy Lacy, Kerry Hastings, Joe Coulson, John Ellis, Alans Chick and Jackson plus myself. We met at the Black Horse Greenford which is adjacent to the Paddington canal. Joining the canal at 10.20 we were pleased to find the tow-path had been upgraded recently with a smooth surface. The wind was also behind us and we made good progress the 9 miles to Little Venice, where the path disappears due to busy moorings and a tunnel. The canal also splits here so we took the left fork onto the Regents canal.
It was handy to have Alan Chick along as he was able to lead us along a road section for about a mile before rejoining the canal. The Regents canal is quite scenic as it passes through London Zoo but we didn't spot many animals apart from a lone Hyena. The pedestrian traffic built up a bit at this point but wasn't too bad; another mile or so and we came across a hole in the wall and entered the crazy world of Camden Market. There were dozens of stalls selling street food from around the world and the market looked very busy.
We found a coffee shop and enjoyed a large and reasonably priced coffee, after this we posed for a photo taken by Joe who passed on the idea of handing his phone to a passer by in case he didn't see it again, very wise.
It was then back through the hole in the wall and onto the canal again to retrace our route back to Greenford. We soon realised that we were facing a brisk headwind for the return journey so had to work a bit harder. We did make an attempt at drafting but this soon fizzled out, but even so we arrived back at the Black Horse at the allotted time of 1.30 for lunch.
We had covered 21.4 miles in 2hours 32 mins riding time, and enjoyed a nice lunch in this very pleasant pub.