Dalston to Greenwich, 2am, maybe a Thursday. You buzz off the hood vibe and the jaywalkers as you head down Kingsland; keep sharp through the fucked club kids and the queues for Herbal and you make a break for Shoreditch at the Old Street lights. Once you've made it to Spitalfields the crowds dissipate after the Golden Heart; you shoot up Commercial Road and it's busy and fast. The traffic subsides as you turn into the back streets of Limehouse. You swing through a walkway and come out suddenly on the Thames, wide and grand and bearing right as it runs down to Greenwich. It's quite a vista - Canary Wharf towers above you just to your left; the river stretches east towards Woolwich and west to a central London you now feel so far from. It's quiet. The sound of the water stills the air. You run up some steep steps - hoisting your bike - and once you're down on Westferry road past the traffic light roundabout you can turn off for the Thames path. Now, with the river calm and ink blue, with the lights of a thousand riverside apartments flickering on the lapping waters: you, alone, pedalling across the night, living a London so few ever manage to feel.
pajamas I want to do this ride with you one day, please!!
pajamas I want to do this ride with you one day, please!!