"Those London Lights": Late Night Ride, Thurs Dec 4th

Despite Henry's horrible incident at the end, a mind blowing ride. Well done to the crew at the crash for staying so cool. Just standing there, silent, around our fallen comrade, really did prevent things getting really ugly with the Police. Most of the officers, were far from impressed with the offending drivers conduct, and went out of their way to diffuse the situation.

I took plenty of pictures, and will get them on a CD and over to someone whose computer skills will do them justice. Maybe South Drinks on Monday, if there are any design gurus around?

On a positive note, Pajamas, you are an inspiration. A wonderful ride, painstakingly thought through with so many surprises, and original twists and turns. How that rep has gone, I am writing to Mr. G Brown, asking that you are added to the New Years honours list, and given the OBE.......

Outstanding Bike Event

award for 2008!

also does anyone know what happened to furious tiles, he had an accident on the way to the ride, in the confusion and anger at the end, totally forgot about it. Jacqui, will pm you to find out any news...

glad to hear that henry walked away! my heart skipped about 10 beats when i pulled up and saw our lot surrounded by cops & an ambulance with somebody down... and soo closee to the end... so glad you'll be alright though!!

pjs - great ride ! i really enjoyed myself and there were many points where i was considerably awed... can tell a lot of thought, planning and love went into that ride - so thanks pal! my personal highlights were the stoplight/turnsignal tree and hot pink water as the light reflected off london bridge.

cheers all who made it to the end!

Am fine, just completely shattered.
Bruised and no brakes, so no worries.
I want to say thanks to everyone who helped and most of all purple_tom, you are an absolute godsend.
I'm sorry I don't remember everyone who helped, I just wanted to say sorry for ending the ride on a bad note.

It was an amazing ride, real good fun. Thanks PJS again, and hope everyone else is getting a nice rest.

Furious tiles I hope you're ok.

hows the bike?

seems fine.
Will do a thorough check, take it apart and double check, but no bends, cracks or anything (about 70% sure).

I cleared off about half two due to needing to be able to get up for work! but everything up to that was fantastic, had a great time, nice meeting alot of you as well.
Pajamas well done top effort!

eyebrows. Really sorry to hear about your crash but glad you are on the mend. Were you carrying a spare frame? Take care and get some brakes!

Really enjoyable ride last. Such a pity it ended the way it did. Henry - hope you're alright...rest up and heal fast, dude.

Cheers JimJams for leading this one. Ace route - it covered some lovely sights. Real glad it was a relatively relaxed ride throughout otherwise I'd have been even more fucked this morning. Thanks also to Ma3k and Multi for navigating the splinter group back to the main one. I'm useless in those situations and so appreciate y'all getting us back in the game.

One final thing (a Jerry Springer Final Thought if you will) - I know sometimes on these rides peeps get left behind/get lost/groups splinter off but it's a good feeling to know that you all stick together when it matters most. There were some seriously cool heads at the scene of Henry's accident despite the circumstances (purple tom, Corny, Ma3k, JimJams...too tired to remember the rest) and everyone was genuinely worried about Henry. It's good to know that should anything ever happen to me I'm with decent folk.

"Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other".

PJs: Great ride, thanks for being patient and showing us all the London Lights!
Dillon: good to meet you buddy. To all the other people I met: hope you loved the ride as much as I did - take care all.

Really sorry to hear we had a man down - get better soon buddy and here's hoping it isn't all too much of a headache!

I bailed around 2.30 - work and a big night out tonight were on my mind. Kinda wished I had seen it to the end now, tho.

henry: good to see you well enough to be posting. what happened? did you have you ipod up too loud and ride in front of da plod? did you roll around london singing 'fuck the police' prompting them to run you down? did you valiantly push a damsel in distress out of the roaring police car only to take the hit yourself movie style? what happened?!

and is furious t ok?

Pajamas, great ride, thanks for all the planning and you were soooooo right about the tyres!!!

Henry, glad you're OK, it was a horrible sight coming up to the police van with you lying sprawled in front of it. Apparently it's their new tactic - you jump a red, they mow you down just to show you...

Home by five, in work by ten...it's going to be a long day, but so worth it!

Henry, good to see your ok(ish), was such a shame that it happened and so close to the end too. Was a bit of a shock to come round the corner and see everyone looking so concerned and then realising someone was down. Hope the bike is ok. Props to everyone for keeping their cool.

'jamas, thanks for sorting this ride, really nice sights and obviously a labour of love. Strong work.

Everyone else, really nice riding with you all. :)

Thanks all, lovely time. Bailed early 2ish due to cold/cough which is currently doing its best to get a stranglehold on me. Hopefully see heads around east over the w/end

at my desk, drinking a warming cup of green tea, and trying to figure out how I'm going to see The Roots tonight, working off only three hours sleep. I believe a disco nap is in order this afternoon.

Now Henry's posted up that he's okay, thought I'd post up some more rounded thoughts from the night.
Right now what sticks out in my mind is the genuine camaraderie that these night rides, or for that matter, any ride where groups of us are together, whether it be the roll home from a drinks on the other side of town, a random spot and mutual ride for a couple of minutes before you go your seperate ways, or a more organised longer night ride like this one, engender. We are a beautiful bunch of people and I'm glad to know so many of you, and call you friends. Seeing so many of you after Henry's accident at the beigel place really brightened my morning, I assumed you'd all gone home, but to find you all hanging around, eating comfort food, and discussing the nights events and providing shoulders to lean on, was a welcome sight.
On this ride I saw a side (east principally) of London I've never seen, and it was glorious, different perspectives on the place I call home, and I've got to thank the jim jams for that. Good solid people riding together, it was slow going at the beginning, and I've got no idea how we got from one place to the next, but it was nice to be on people's wheels and having good moments on the bike as well as bad moments. Lots of strong legs on this forum and on this ride.
Really sad that we lost people along the way, but understandable, I had a wobble myself once we started getting down south, but decided to break on through and carry on to the end. Big thanks to the south massive for democracy in action.

Good Memories: The blue tron light moment, the ride down throughthe greenwich foot tunnel, crabtree with the herbage at just the right moments, discovering the mks chain tugs I'd thought I'd lost, in the back pocket of my top, seeing east london in a totally different light, the safe return of the splinter group that went hammering it along to southwark cathedral, drop out giddy as a schoolboy as he tried to persuade every one to do the underpass at hyde park corner, multigrooves, awe inspiring, endo bunnyhop down the steepest pair of steps I've ever seen down by the river.

Bad Memories: nutter mini cab drivers, geezer that was acting like a complete cock on the way down to piccadilly, the idiot in the merc, who decided to throw a water bottle at ma3k, the nobbins who decided to get gobby with a flotilla of bike riders at like half three in the morning as they made their drunken way across chelsea bridge, and the two twats who were being idiots at the scene of henry's accident.

sorry for the long post, but this is one of those rides where you can say with pride I was there to the very end. Legendary, and all those that completed should give yourselves a pat on the back.

Can I just say anyone who had photo's of the scene of henry's accident can you drop him a pm and ping them over to him, also anyone else who took photo's video's of the night can we get them up as soon as possible, we need to let the rest of the forum see what they missed out on.

That is all..

Ain't got any photos but I do have this - the route I rode last night tracked with GPS (including the slight detour with the splinter group featuring Fiddy, Multi, Stix, tom, Ma3k and co.)

good man wools, this ride needs to be recreated, and fixed for posterity...

Sounds like I missed a good ride apart from the Henry/police van shinannigans. Fix up sharp.

I was riding down City road on my way to brick lane when a car that was passing me swerved and took me out, didn't really know about it till I was looking up at the sky.
Witnesses told me that a group of yoots had ran out in front of the car which then swerved in front of me.
Fortunately I was barely doing 15mph as I'd just pulled away from the lights, my bag saved my back, but my hand is pretty sore having clipped something.

Just pissed off I missed the ride and just spent the rest of my evening with shit TV and a bag of frozen peas.

corny you made me jealous

tim, the ride missed you as well. glad you are mostly alright, keep the peas on it.

+1
Cheers Ma3k and Multi for leading us back was soo totally lost would not have been able to find the others too!!
@Multi thanks for saving the keys :)

I'm so jealous now! Glad you all had fun. FT & Eyebrows heal up quick peeps.

that looks ace. especially as i was planning to go to woolwich next week. i can do some of that in reverse.

Tim. Sorry to hear about your crash. Fix fast.

Good ride Pajamas, and everyone that made it out.
Few hiccups, and I had to bail early, but fun whilst it lasted.

Personal highlight... Ma3K relaying the story of the motorbike cop which began to sound like something from Lethal Weapon.

More pix to follow...

http://www.londonfgss.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3543&stc=1&d=1228479975

1 Attachment