Hot summer day ride out

The hottest day of the year so far, Sunday seemed like a good day for me and the kid to go for a ride out. Our destination was to the Jailhouse cafe, which I'd seen advertised in a classic bike magazine; its an old converted 50's bus, and it's parked next to a classic bike shop down in the wilds of Kent. It was the first time out for the kid this year, his Aprilia has spent most of the last few months having various repairs done (he dropped it) so it was a 'steady' ride for the first hour or so. We practised my usual method of navigation, ride in the general desired direction of travel down any road that looks interesting, then when lost, stop and look at google maps on the iphone. Repeat until you get to destination. So it was 21/2 hours and a number of wrong turns before we got there.

The bus had been converted very well, and seemed to be quite popular, judging by the number of customers. The adjacent bike shop was hampered by most of it's bikes being very rough and ready - they also sell old custom bikes, but these were mostly home-built choppers that looked extremely unroadworthy. After a plate of chips and a mug of tea (what else?) we set off back home, with the idea of completing a big circle - with me leading it was pretty much a repeat of the journey down. There was only one little incident when the kid hit a patch of gravel on a bend, I was behind at the time and it looked like a fairly buttock-clenching moment, but he managed to keep the bike upright. Maybe we need to slow down a bit!

This week I'm in Holland, in Dordrecht on business. Had a stroll around the old town centre last night, very pleasant. Its all a bit unexciting here, work mostly, but a nice break from mad London.