RAF Museum
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A ride to see the RAF Museum in Colindale and the Brent Reservoir.

15 of us turned up for a ride to the RAF Museum in Colindale taking in a few sights along the way. The weather had changed dramatically from the Saturday and we were met with frost and fog but that didn’t stop us. Pausing briefly to chat to the borough’s Penny Farthing owner we left the town hall and made our way through the back streets to Hanger Lane and then followed the north circular service road to Stonebridge Park and then north into Wembley. The new stadium was still shrouded in fog but we paused briefly to take in the impressive view before continuing our ride.

We paused in Asda and took advantage of the free yoghurts before tackling another hill and then carried on through Barnet and arrived at the museum with no further events. The museum is huge, I’ve seen one building when heading along M1 but had no idea just how many other buildings, displays and offices are on the site. One thing that was missing though was any cycle parking – two wheel benders tucked behind a warehouse that needed security clearance to access. The one comment from the security guard was that we don’t get many cyclists, hardly surprising really. A letter is being penned.

The museum covers the history of the RAF and all things aeronautical with a heavy emphasis on the second world war. It’s hard to do it justice in a single day let alone the few hours we spent there but we agreed we should return to Ealing in daylight and so left at 2.00 in order to take in the Welsh Harp Reservoir.

We re-traced our steps and then headed south down the Edgware Road before peeling off to see the reservoir – originally built to help maintain the canals. There’s not a great deal in the area unless you like sailing and it was disappointing that not more is made of the resource they have – a few boats were out but there was not a great deal of wind. We continued on through into Brent, past the Ace Café in full swing with bikers and glad to be out of the pot holed riddled borough of Barnet and back into Ealing where people started to peel off when they recognised landmarks.

18 miles – thanks to Kelvin for the route and leading.