Future London
.

A ride to the Science Museum to see the Future London exhibition

Twelve of us turned out on a rather wet Sunday to visit the Science Museum in South Kensington, we had two new faces who had trekked in from deepest Essex and another from France. As soon as the rain stopped we headed towards South Ealing where one rider decided that the weather really was to much and peeled off at Wickes. At the end of Green Dragon Lane the heavens opened and we pulled over while more rain gear was put on, the thought crossed my mind of heading straight into the steam museum and calling it a day but I couldn’t disappoint the Essex pair. Some temporary traffic lights made the exit by the steam museum painless and we braved the down pour to cross Kew Bridge and onto the Thames Path.

The rain stopped, started, and stopped again and we rode quite a muddy path into London. Two punctures, a snapped spanner and more rain later we got to the museum. I had not rode the route before hand that I had planned north of Battersea Bridge, but the traffic was good and there was a nifty right hand turn into the Cromwell Road. There was a severe lack of cycle parking around the museum as verified by one rider who works nearby which is a shame, but we made do with some railings and got into the dry.

After David was relived of his tool kit, presumably in case he tried to liberate an exhibit we made our way to Future London. The exhibition itself was fairly thought provoking and covered numerous topics such as saving water, home gardening, and then drifted onto organic food and the Olympics for 2012 for some reason. Probably the highlight was an enormous aerial photograph of London where we duly pointed out our own houses and noticed just how much green space there is in London.

After a leisurely lunch we compared notes and headed back through South Kensington and into Hammersmith before taking our usual way back through the quieter side of Chiswick and onto the north side of Kew Bridge.

The weather was not conducive to the usual café stop we normally have but some of us retired to the Rose & Crown pub for a de-briefing.

I should have gone home and followed Future London’s advice and had a quick shower of collected rain water, but alas a hot bath was called for instead – I’ll be planting a tree to off-set my carbon emission.

20 miles.