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Showing posts from September, 2009

PARK RIDE

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Anyone with two wheels in west London will know about Richmond Park . It's a splash of cool green in the middle of suburban concrete. It's surrounded by Roehampton high rises, A3 traffic jams and endless residential streets. On the proverbial clear day, you can see the London Eye , BT Tower and Canary Wharf from the middle of the park. It's home to a wide variety of wild - and not so wild - life. Rabbits, badgers, woodpeckers, squirrels, foxes, ring-necked parakeets, magpies and herons live there. 350 fallow and 300 red deer roam the park at will. They've been in the area since the 17th Century when Charles I enclosed the land for easy hunting. It remains one of the largest enclosed parklands in Britain. At the weekends Richmond Park is rammed with cyclists on the metalled roads, as well as on the off-road Tamsin Trail. Groups of club riders, most notably from London Dynamo , whiz round the perimeter in fully-fledged peleton formation. Scattered bunches of Kingston W