Torrential Potential

I was really looking forward to the London Calling project and hanging out with the WeThePeople team. I know most of them fairly well already so we could just crack on and get stuck into having a good time, riding our bikes and capturing some good photos and footage along the way.

The plan was, like every other team, to hit up as many spots as we could and really try to get as far and wide around London as possible. We had a secret plan though, we brought professional ramp builder George Eccleston along with us to try and make the non-rideable spots rideable. You know when you roll down the street, see a spot and think to yourself “ah man, I wish that curb wasn’t right in the way” or “if only I had a kicker to make it up onto that ledge to gap over that wall” well that was the plan for us. Although things don’t always go to plan as we were unfortunately to find out.

I’m not sure what time it was but most of us were pretty drunk by the late afternoon/early evening, myself and Jason decided it would be a good idea to sleep rough for the night. I know it sounds kinda stupid but what else are you gonna do anyway, watch the X Factor or something? No way!

We’ve talked about doing it since the 2012 RTG where there was a ‘sleep outdoors’ challenge for the photographer in the challenge book. Jason, Maxime and myself were going to do it in Dublin but due to the bad weather (again) and hope of riding the next day, it never happened. Until now, a year and a half later in London.

We left the house and bought more booze from the Sainsbury’s next to the apartment and got a taxi out to the Thames. We discussed several options with the taxi driver of where to lay our heads for the night, the driver was actually into the idea and suggested somewhere on Southbank, so Southbank it was. After a while searching for decent places to stop for the night and getting told to do one by security on two separate occasions we ended up on a moored boat whilst the tide was out. We did consider climbing halfway up a bridge but we were far too drunk for all that parkour business because we could only make it about six feet up.

We jumped up into the slippery deck of the boat and with the stench of diesel we fell to sleep like babies in a cot, that is after Jay rang everyone in his phone book (including Gunner, the Editor of the mag!) to let them know what we were up to.

Two hours later we woke to someone jumping on the boat from another telling us in a fairly relaxed thick London accent that we needed to get off. Looking over the edge we realised that we were in fact bobbing around somewhere in the middle of the Thames, don’t ask us how, we were both pretty confused too. The boat man had to tow us to shore so we could get out and he could get on with his job, I have no idea what his job was, but we were on his boat regardless.

After walking around for the best part of another hour or so and looking at various places to sleep, we spent the rest of the night behind a hedge somewhere just off the Southbank and to be honest had one of the best sleeps of the week. We woke up in the morning to the familiar sound of buses, taxis honking away and people walking right by us. We got up had a right laugh at ourselves and went for a posh coffee with all the office dicks and discussed how good sleeping rough in a city is.

LOL-ING IN THE RAIN (THE RIDE BACK FROM GREENWICH)

Everyone’s up and raring to go, let’s look out the window. Oh, it’s pissing down again.

After discussing what we should do for the day we decided to head out to Greenwich to ride that hip under the bridge. It’s a pretty generic hip under the usual flyover bridge but it is at least dry (ish) and we have George Eccleston with us to build things to ride.

We spent the full day there trying to get clips and setting time trial records, which consisted of 4 or 5 cones, a mountain bike and a group of fed up riders. The aim was to slalom through the cones, up the DIY vert wall, fakie out and slalom back through the cones to the finish line. It was actually the most fun I had all day other than riding the hip for two minutes. Mo looked real promising for the win with full on power but as always Mr Alpha Phelan took the win and top honours on the time trial.

Once we were done we had to make our way back to the flat. If you don’t know, Greenwich is about a 9 mile ride back to where we were staying in the city and just as we left, the heavens opened again.

A bit worried about getting wet at first we tried all the techniques known to man to avoid the soaked arse scenario, all whilst riding as fast as possible. The next thing I know Pete Sawyer is flying past me with a massive skid soaking me. It was all fun and games from here on, we got the Emirates cable car back over the river expecting it to make the journey back somehow easier once we had gotten north of the river. In the cable car and at its peak height, Pete and Fooman decide it would be a good idea to rock the cable car, shifting their weight from side to side whilst the cable car swung around like mad. And there I am trying to counteract the rocking by swinging in the opposite directions. Terrified by visions of plummeting into the Thames in a sealed capsule were not fun at all, although looking back, are now.

LETTING OFF SOME STEAM

So it’s the last night that the whole team are together, it’s been wet all week and a decent piss up has been well needed for a good few days now. We really have tried our hardest all week to get some decent footage and photos but the weather really hasn’t been on our side and most people are a bit frustrated that they couldn’t get as much done riding wise as they wanted. So, as always, we turn to drinking and being a bunch of dicks, I love it!