Wembley - Harrow - Wembley?

Harrow, you say, what Olympic Venue is housed at Harrow?

There is no Olympic connection with Harrow of which we are aware but this did not deter the team from spending all day there.  In fact, having returned from Harrow to Wembley they did an about turn and revisited Harrow just for good measure.

Stranger still was that all this to-ing and fro-ing was done without the turn of a single pedal but by the roar of various Falcon taxis.

The cause of this strange behaviour was the particularly impressive effect the taking of an anti-histamine had had on the Reading mosquito bites.

With apologies to the squeamish - a sample of Nic's 'target'
mosquito bites now infected.
An estimated 25+ bites.

Overnight Nic's legs had transformed themselves into some kind of alien feature, swollen, red, hot and very itchy.  Taxi to Harrow's Nicholas Park & St. Mary's Hospital - Accident and Emergency Department.  A remarkably quick entrance to see Dr. Omodu and despatched clutching a prescription for 3 items.  A taxi back to Wembley and 15 minutes establishing that neither High Road chemist could fulfil the prescription and the prescription therefore needed changing.

Back to Harrow in another taxi, whilst all the time the fluorescent red marks spread their glow further and further afield.  Again a quick turn round visit to Dr Omodu who kindly phoned ahead to a local chemist to check their stock and off we went to locate a solution.

Nic was now feeling quite out of sorts and stamped her foot at the end of a blotchy, itchy leg and refused to move from Harrow until the medication had a chance to kick in ... thank goodness for the in-hospital branch of Costa's & WH Smith as the team were confined until 5:00p.m before Nic agreed to leave.

An odd day, not one that had been factored into the schedule but according to Dr Omodu pedalling should be able to be recommenced the following day.

Wembley Stadium & Arena - Venues 16 & 17

Off we went to tackle Wembley Stadium.  Fortunately, it was in it's final day functioning as a tourist attraction so we made it as far as reception.

Even more fortunately, we located a fantastic host - Tom was brilliant.  The team had not bargained for the 1948 Olympics memorabilia that is housed at Wembley.

Some of the 1948 gold medallists

Jake standing next to the very
understated 1948 flame cauldron.

Despite the initially unpromising prognosis about what we would be able to see, we even managed to look down on the pitch of this very spacious, clean 90,000 seater stadium.  We had a really brilliant tour.

Tom pointing out the area designated for extra
media seating for The Olympics

Three happy team members.

From the Stadium we crossed to the Arena, in a former life the swimming venue in 1948.  There was obviously lots of construction going on so we were more than pleased to get a front of venue photo.

Team bikewithJake outside the Wembley Arena

Kingston to Wembley

Having completed the south of Thames experience we needed to head north.  We had really wanted to visited the notorious Box Hill section of the road cycling course but we feeling jaded and decided we couldn't risk the amount of time it was likely to take.

It was good for the team to discover that the initial route away from Kingston took them along some of the Time Trial and Road Race route so that we can at least say we pedalled a bit of Olympic route.  It was an interesting journey northwards, planned courtesy of Transport for London website - it worked really well and we had a great ride until we hit the Hangar Lane gyratory - not good by car and with an equally befuddling series of exits for cyclists using the subway - to be avoided.

Reaching Ealing Road was fantastic, far too busy and hectic to cycle, we walked mostly, soaking up the atmosphere of colours, smells, shops extending out into the street as a little bit of Asia blends into multi-cultural London.  There was an amazing Hindu temple under construction - well worth a look.

Apparently 10 years under construction - stunning

The only other thing of note en route was a stop at a Pharmacy.  The Reading mosquito bites were still hanging on and Philip persuaded Nic to invest in some anti-histamine tablets as some bites were beginning to look angry - good move?

Wimbledon - Venue 14, Hampton Court Venue 15

Seeing Wimbledon from the back of Larry's magic transport did not constitute visiting the venue so we had more back-tracking to do.

First we had a photo-shoot to do.  Suresh Singh, Deputy General Manager at the Holiday Inn and all the staff were absolutely fantastic hosts and we all had a fun photo shoot outside the hotel before pedalling off to the All England Lawn Tennis Association.

Team BWJ with our fantastic Holiday Inn hosts.

At Wimbledon we were lucky enough to bump into Tom who helped us get a great photo as proof of our visit.  Quite a relaxed venue compared to others but then they'd just done a Grand Slam tournament so everything seemed to be running smoothly.

Trying to drive into Centre Court

We then had by far our best mocha coffee of the whole journey at 'Paul' in Wimbledon village - we didn't say no to trying out some of their pastries either mmmm.  We took the scenic route to Hampton Court desperate to make it in the dry...

Richmond Park - 3 handsome fellows?

On the way, we got wet.  We also got incredibly muddy as we scooted along the towpath.  We were overtaken by a hardy group of 16 cyclists from North Wales beginning their annual pilgrimage back to home from a variety of starting points - this year, London.  It had started to rain.

Luckily for us the two ladies at Hampton Court were very hospitable and knowledgeable as we chatted and took photos.  They heartily recommended the Time Trial as an event to watch - we just might take them up on this!

Jake standing roughly where the Time Trial
start ramp will be.

We headed back to the hotel in the drizzle, getting plastered but pleased with our day when splat!  Down came Philip on some slippery planks alongside the Thames.

Ouch! But just look at those muscles