Spoons To 'Spoons (A ThNRC Affair)

Shit

?

False alarm, I'm still good for the ride to head out Friday night

Phew, good to hear :)

So, reading back the thread I count 9 persons 'confirmed':

• middleofnowhere
  
• YAL
  
• jaeyukdapbap
  
• Ruserius
  
• On1
  
• jonny
  
• Rod_Munch
  
• cagimaha (who didn't click on 'attending' 👀)
  
• and myself
  
  

@balmain and @KT_Bee have also expressed interest.

I'm gonna shoot an email to the people taking care of the QE2 crossing later today, if you want in/out let me know.

Good stuff. Has the route been finalised yet or is it still a work in progress?

We're pretty much set on what YAL and cagimaha posted for before and after QE2. Just need to convert the 2nd half to RGPS so that it's easier for people to get, and edit the first post.

Ah its the Friday night? Sorry I got confused and thought it was the Saturday, got a booking Friday 31st so won't be able to make this :(

Apologies I've now gone done a proper attending announcement!

right I thought this was Saturday night. but now understand it is Friday. in some ways that might be better but need to sort a little bit of low level switching of things around. Will confirm in next day or so

Ha, just seen the meet point: Darkes Lane.

@cgg any word from the Dartford crossing people? happy to give them a call today if you have not heard anything.

I sent the mail yesterday around midday. I'll chase if I haven't got an answer by end of day.

Did a pre-run of the 2nd half of the route today, there's some road closures but I could still cycle through them and they were actually a bonus as they meant no traffic.

The train back is £13 if you pre-book but if you buy at the station they're a fair bit dearer. I think £36 for a fast train and £28 for a slow one. Anyone fancy hedging their bets and booking one in advance or is the consensus to take the hit and get a group save?

Good question, personally I’d normally swing towards flexibility as a stressy end to a long overnight ride (either by having too much time or not enough) is not much fun.

So I’d be up for a group save, but I’m easy either way if people want to gamble - I haven’t checked how regular the trains are yet though..

Yeah there's nothing worse than having to push because you're behind on schedule for the train. I also want to be able to truly degustate the culinary offerings.

I'd prefer groupsave as well, especially as #dadlife might mean I need to take a train at Whitstable / herne bay / Margate instead if things change at the homestead

Thank you for contacting Dart Charge. I have received your email with regards to your crossing enquiry for cyclists.

We would recommend you contact Highways England on 0300 123 5000 regarding this issue as we are unfortunately unable to assist you with this enquiry.

Once again thank you for contacting Dart Charge if you have any further questions, call us on 0300 300 0120 between 5:00 am and midnight daily. Alternatively, email customerservice@dartford-crossing-charge.service.gov.uk.

Well. I’m gonna give them a ring on Tuesday, I guess.

Over the weekend I conceived an alternative route in the event the 10+ cyclist crossing at Dartford doesn't happen. It would be a mirror of the route, but starting at the Wetherspoons in Oxted and then heading over to Ramsgate. Obviously would not have the same feels at Potters Bar and lacks the adventure of the Dartford Crossing, but at least we'd still be able to ride...

Sounds good.

We can also arrange for a not-too-horrible route down to the Greenwich foot tunnel. Eg along the Lea/Lee river or something. It's gonna be fairly late anyway?

I'm gonna call them now, will report.

This was rather fun.

I called Dart Charge, who gave me the number of Highway England ( the number I got in the mail didn’t work for some obscure reason)

I called Highway England, who told me they would put a request to Connect Plus for me, but that I should call them to make sure it was accordingly prioritised. They then redirected me.

I was redirected to Dart Charge, who told me that Connect Plus didn’t exist anymore and that I should call Highway England back.

At this point I whipped out Google and found a contact number for Connect Plus (whose rumours of demise seemed to have been greatly exaggerated), which I called presently. The lady on the line put me through to the "security team" responsible for these things.

It transpired that the service is available 24/7, 365 days a year, but thank you very much for making us aware, I’ll put a note to my colleagues. They have a vehicule taking 6 bikes and so if we’re more than that they’ll just do two crossings.

So that’s it more or less.

TLDR: It seems there’s no getting around of having to call them at the crossing point and waiting for them to show up, and having to do at least two crossings.

Thanks for doing the leg work on this! Guess it makes sense to pack a jacket for the waiting around bit then...

Does anyone wanna (probably most relevant for those living south) try and groupsave the train up to Potters Bar? Watch the pennies, etc....

Same goes for Northeners, actually. Though I'll be boarding at Finsbury Park so that limits the possibilities.

Thanks @cgg, got to love some UK cycle infrastructure shit show!

Definitely in for a group save and leg save train to Potters Bar.

Yep to groupsave. I prob can't be to Kings X until 9ish at the earliest tho...