David: Hello everyone, and welcome to the first post of our blog.

Our flight to London was pretty uneventful, after we had gotten the bikes bagged and checked in.


We learned a few things immediately upon arriving in London. One is that it rains a lot. Another is that it is very expensive (we burned through about a week's budget just taxiing in the plane from the runway to the gate). The other is that not many people fly with bikes into London Heathrow Airport. Heathrow is surrounded by its runways, which means the only way for vehicles to leave the airport is via a single tunnel. We had read in a few places (and heard from a few people) that it was possible, although a little tricky, to ride through the tunnel. Airport officials had apparently not read the same things, and told us flat out that there was no way to get our bikes out of the airport. The concept of needing a way to get our bikes out seemed to baffle them. One spent a few minutes telling me there was no way to ride my bike to Heathrow - when I finally got him to understand I needed to ride OUT of Heathrow, he asked incredulously, "How did your bike get IN here?" Another suggested we pay for all of the tickets in a shuttle bus and load our bikes onto the seats.

We were worried we might become some of those people that get stuck in airports forever, living in obscurity until a movie starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones was made about us. Finally we found a sympathetic ticket agent at one of the 781 different trains that leave Heathrow who told us her train was happy to take bikes. We were relieved but remain hopeful a movie will be made about us.

Jodie: Following a short trip by train (during which David fell asleep thrice) we ended up at Paddington Station just in time to hit rush hour, making train or tube travel with bikes impossible until at least 6:30 pm. A kindly bobby informed us that riding to London Bridge Station through Hyde Park, Green Park and St. James's Park (as well as along the Thames) was entirely possible, so out we went. Ironically, after planning carefully how to get to Sarah's house while avoiding central London, we managed to bike past almost every iconic London site on the way to catch a train to North Dulwich - Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, parliament... a very beautiful ride indeed.



We took an elevator up to cross the Millenium Bridge to the south side of the Thames, but then at the other end we discovered a critical problem with bike touring with four panniers each - getting up and down stairs. Some frantic running up and down to avoid theft of either bikes or bags was successful, if a bit emotionally taxing at the end of a long day.



David: By the time we arrived at our friend's place, it was 8 hours after we landed. We knocked happily, expecting to be eating crumpets and drinking tea within a few minutes. We knocked again, this time a little less happily and a little more anxiously. We knocked a third time, now a bit panicky. We lifted up the mail slot and shouted. No response. We walked dejectedly back outside into the pouring rain to consider our options (none). Thankfully our friend was only asleep and we were inside only minutes later, although enjoying bangers and mash and a pint at the local pub instead of tea and crumpets.