WnrItp (Weekday night ride In the park)

What a great way to finish off a regular Tuesday. Bring the bike into work, put lycra on, carry jeans and underwear in the backpack. Take the overground and 40 min later you are in one of the most beautiful places in London: Richmond Park.

One of the main downs is that it gets very busy with cars fighting for space against the hundreds of roadie machacas that hit its roads every day. But, at 8 pm the doors shut for cars, and remain open for the rest of the unmotorised population.

Light beam, blinking red lights, sunset, and trees on both sides of the road. Long exposure moving picture

So, shortly after 8 pm you hardly see any car, only the few that were not aware of the restrictions and are trying to get out. The deer seem to relax and we saw literally hundreds of them, of all sizes. By 8:45 pm it was so dark that we had to use our proper night lights to see a few meters ahead of us. Despite the delayed start due to a mechanical on Bec´s Trek, we managed to put in two laps of the finest riding in London, making some 28 km at an average of 22 km/h.

This park has it all: fast descents, a couple of proper-ish hills, flat bits, abrupt turns, and a fantastic sunset (or sunrise, if you are brave enough!). We were obviously not the only ones experiencing this, as it seems that lots of people enjoy the quietness of the park after 8 pm. We spotted hikers, night mtb-ers, night roadies and even a girl on a unicycle!

Definetely have to try and make this a regular weekday out throughout the year.