KCL / King's College London Cyclists

Cycling Society would be great. They didn't have that sort of thing in my day.

Still Exeter with Kings as a banker is not a bad position to be in.

Clive, I would be worried if I were you. I was at King's, too, and look how I turned out. :)

Oliver - let's hope she gets straight grade As and gets into Exeter then.

Yet another reason your daughter shouldn't go to King's.. I won't be there anymore.

wibz, have you graduated? how'd you do?

Done and done. Got a gentleman's 2:2

(is that a 2:1?)

congratulations!

also, i'm going to be going to King's College Hospital next week to visit some people on my registry. what's the bike parking recommendations please?

There isn't much on offer really.. have a look either by the car park (closest bit to Ruskin park on Denmark Hill, just up from the A&E entrance) or round the side by the old Nurse's entrance.

just joined the FacB group!

i got an offer from kings, but i rejected it, as i preferred the course at UCL even though it was a higher offer (AAB compared to ABB).... but if the shit hits the fan Bristol offered me a measly BB offer.. someone point me in the direction of a ucl or bristol uni thread haha

I ended up in similar spot, bristol or UCL. I went for UCL just cos it's in London. When I applied all you needed was BBC.

UCL is packed full of ponces though.

When I applied all you needed was BBC.

Ah, did you do Media Studies?

^bang!

So any new KCL freshers following the release of A-Level results?

So any new KCL freshers following the release of A-Level results?

Yup, one here. Will be staying in Wolfson House if that means anything.
Apparently you can keep bikes in your room...

Anyone else?

@ebenzo - probably not what you want to hear but in my experience Wolfson house is the worst of the halls of residence. The only bonus is being right on Guy's campus if that's where you'll be studying.

I'd recommend King's College Halls (although they're re-doing it so it'll be less awesome than when I was there) if you want to swap with someone in the first few weeks. Most of the others are structured into floors or blocks so you'll rarely mingle with too many others but KCH (as it's catered) is far more open so you'll make loads more friends. Denmark Hill/East Dulwich (just around the corner from Herne Hill velodrome) is quite nice too and Camberwell is always eventful.

@wibble - I've heard the same too..I guess I'm not overly bothered now that it's confirmed (booking fee paid and all) and I should count myself lucky as I was the only King's applicant from my school to even be offered accommodation. Now they're "frantically flat-hunting". The closeness to Guy's campus, which is where I'll be studying is a huge bonus, as well as it's cheaper cost relative to other accommodation that was offered. People have said that, while it's not the most luxurious of living spaces, it's very sociable...

Will anyone really be willing to swap with me since Wolfson appears to be at the bottom of the pile?

Thanks for the advice.

Is it still the case that you have to avoid catered halls like the plague?

in my experience (3/4 years ago) there were spaces in KCH and early on at least, people tried to swap from there into other halls. I'm sure you'll be fine, being in Wolfson will give you more reason to spend less time there and more in libraries/pubs ;)

@Oli - when I was in accommodation I went catered and it was the bottom of the pile for applicants but the food was almost always fine (occasionally towards the end of the month the choices would get less varied and the quality might dip) and there were some weekly highlights such as Fish & Chip Friday followed by a fairly solid apple pie and custard. It was also the most sociable hall as it was big enough to have it's own bar.

Food was by all accounts horrendous when I was in halls in the mid-Nineties. Mind you, that's not my verdict, but that of people I knew who were at KCH. I was in a self-catering hall and the food that I prepared for myself was definitely horrendous. ;)

How essential is attendance at Freshers' week ...?

I ask because a friend and I are planning to do London to Paris and the only available few days are during that week.

I went to one event during fresher's week (from memory it's actually two weeks of events) and wasn't particularly disappointed.. I know people who went to a few more who now tell me that they were a bit of a waste of money. There's plenty of time throughout the year to go out with your fellow freshmen and I think you'll only really need to be in London on the day that you need to enrol which is usually just before your lectures start.

London to Paris is a great ride by the way, I did it over the summer and really enjoyed it. The roads in France are a joy (apart from the last 15miles or so into Paris itself) and there are only really a couple of climbs worth thinking about.

Okay - very helpful, thanks!

Enrolment is on the 22nd and lectures start on 27th, I think.
Will that give me enough time to do the ride?
We'll be cycling to Newhaven from where a ferry will bring us across the Channel to Dieppe.
Then we'll follow this guide.

Anything like the route you did?
How long did it take you and how did you sort out accommodation - advanced booking, or there and then?
Distance per day?

Fixed or not?

I guess that'd be enough time to do the ride, especially as you're not doing Calais-Paris which is the route my ride took. I did it as part of a 24 hour charity ride with about 150 other riders in a team of two so we did sections of it tag-team (one on the road for 2 hours/35miles, the other on a coach going to the next transition stop).

Just from a quick google, London - Newhaven is about 60 miles and Dieppe - Paris is around 110miles. Both of those distances are do-able in a day if you've done a few longer rides before. If you wanted to get it out of the way quickly you could leave London in the morning, get to Newhaven in the afternoon and then get an over-night ferry crossing. From there you could ride Dieppe-Paris in a day (a little less than the distance of the Dunwich Dynamo).
If you wanted to break it up you could have 3 days of about equal distance 60ish - 50ish - 60ish which would be much more relaxed and give you plenty of time to be where you need to be if you end up booking things in advance.

Are you riding back or getting the eurostar? Have a look at the bikes on eurostar thread if you're going that route..

Yeah, our route is a lot shorter than your one. Here it is in case you're interested.
Sounds like fun! Did you get any photos/videos?

Our plan is to complete the whole thing in no more than 3 days as we wouldn't call ourselves dedicated long-distance riders. But 50/60 miles a day is fine if the terrain is anything London to Brighton?

We're planning to get the Eurostar - will do.

Cheers!