Cycling round London at night
I love riding round London at night. For various reasons it’s great to be out and experience the city late in the evening when things are quiet. There’s more space, less people and most importantly a sense of quiet. That feeling is pretty eloquently described in a Road.cc blog post I found today.
When the night falls, parts of our capital city become a cyclist’s dream. Cars vanish. So do cyclists, and the few who are left at this time of night tend to be better behaved. The city’s irksome distractions and sources of rage have been put to bed. There’s just you and the rubber-black road.
Previously this would only happen after a late night at work. Usually I would decline the offer of a taxi and jump on my bike home at 3am in the morning. The highlight for me would always be Waterloo Bridge. It’s pretty special most evenings but late at night / early in the morning with no one around it’s even better.
More recently I’ve been heading out to Richmond Park in the evening which in the last month or so has been in complete darkness. Again this is even more incredible due to the fact that the gates are shut to cars from dusk. The silence of the park along with it being completely pitch black really adds to the sense of isolation and solitude. That sense of isolation is occasionally interrupted as your light picks out a deer, or group of, hanging around at the side of the road or often wandering over the road. It feels completely different than riding round during the daylight hours. Whilst that might be an obvious statement it surprises me how different it is and how you don’t relate to your position in the park as much. It’s hard to work out how far you are around. And then you escape through the gate and back onto the road with the street lights and back towards the bright lights London.
So good.
