Feeder rides from several London boroughs converged on the Olympic countdown clock outside Stratford railway station. Camden’s contingent led by James Brander had set off from Belsize Park at 10.30, picked up a 37-strong Islington group in Upper Street, and arrived more or less in time to join the other 100 or so riders.

The first stop was at the top of the Stratford shopping centre multistorey car park (photo) where Nick Williams of the Newham Council planning department described how the site would be laid out. There’s not a lot to see as yet, except the new international station (built but not open), and the area of mud where the retail and commercial development that was part of the bribe to London and Continental Railways (the other part was the King’s Cross Railway Lands area) to encourage them to build the high speed channel tunnel rail link.

Nick is very enthusiastic about the Olympics, especially about the ‘legacy’, the sports facilities that will be left afterwards for local folk to use; and the fact that the whole site will become, in effect, a ‘sporting park’, with lots of open space surrounding the various legacy structures.

However, viewed from the top of the car park, it was very clear that the new shopping and commercial development will have a very important visual effect on the Olympic site, simply because it will be so large.

Anyway, after this introduction we all set off in groups of 10-15 for a leisurely tour, with seven stops at key points. The first was Eastway cycle circuit, where the new Velodrome and BMX buildings will be sited (Eastway closes in September, to be moved to Hog’s Hill a few miles away), and from where you can see where the athletes village (replacing 3500 Housing Association houses, two tower blocks of student accommodation and two travellers’ sites) will be. The travellers are being relocated within a few hundred yards, and the Athletes’ Village will be turned into regular housing after the games, of which 50% will be affordable. We then saw where the new tennis facilities would be, replacing the closed Lea Valley Sports Centre, and where East Marsh playing fields will be replaced by a coach park for the duration of the games (though they will be reconstituted afterwards). The local nature reserve here, Bully Wood, seems to have been granted a reprieve since a rare reptile (either lizard or newt) has been found.

Access into the main site will be through seven gates, each served by a ‘land bridge’ which will provide pedestrian connection either to parking facilities (as at East Marsh) or to public transport interchange (eg Stratford). Sustrans is working on improving cycle approaches to the site, especially along the Greenway from the south. But it is very unlikely that cycling will be allowed within the main site – you’ll have to park and walk. Our tour continued to the position of the volleyball park (which will displace something like 10% of London’s buses currently garaged in some disused warehouses); and the newly completed roadway into the international station. This is about half the size of Camden High St and intended to serve both the station and the new retail park. It does have a nice looking cycle lane on one side, except that you have to cross to the other side of the road in the last few yards in order to leave.

We then stopped to look at where the aquatic centre (two 50m pools plus a 25m diving pool) will be located. One of the 50m pools will be modified for local use, though the others will remain as competition venues. Then there’s the main stadium and warm-up tracks over on the north west of the park site. This will occupy Marshgate Lane, the road from which most of the small businesses are being evicted (they’re all being relocated, mostly within a few miles). The stadium will be built with 80000 capacity for the games, though will probably be cut down to 25000 afterwards, with other athletic-related activities incorporated into it.

We then had a pleasant ride along some of the waterways in the area, which are really very rural: seeing the original Big Breakfast house; and hearing how there is talk of raising the water levels in order to use the canals for transporting spoil and building materials.

The tour took about an hour, finishing in the Three Mills studios, where the café managed to provide some snack lunches.

The Camden and Islington ride (now much reduced in numbers) continued after lunch, retracing some of the route along the Lea Navigation and then joining Sustrans Route 1 up as far as Springfield Park. From here it’s a reasonably easy connection into Finsbury Park, thence to Parkland Walk, through various Holloway back streets over to Hampstead Heath, where the last survivors flopped onto the grass for a rest.

It was a good day out, and very interesting. Even those of us who don’t much like the idea of the Olympics had to admit that most of what is proposed won’t be too detrimental. I suppose the only thing we’re still unconvinced about is the timing. All complete by 2011, with not a sod turned before 2008. Hmmm.