🚲 London’s brilliant new cycling roundabout — now so easy to cycle from Finsbury Park to Leyton

You can cycle from Finsbury Park in North London to Leyton in north east London, entirely on quiet streets and protected cycle lanes. #londonlovescycling

The route is 8.6km long (5.3 miles) and makes use of the brand new revamped Lea Bridge Roundabout, protected cycle lanes on Lea Bridge Road, as well as new and historic LTNs in Stoke Newington, Hackney Downs, and Finsbury Park.

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You can see a digital map of the route and download a GPS/GPX file to use on whatever device or app you want here:

https://www.komoot.com/tour/1482129217?share_token=aC2tPeUCMoiss7W1GhH3S6TiFQsLtaJgAl2csu5RW7Sf0g8r6K&ref=wtd

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https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1h9Hxm57fPvZmcuSXajM_Wu0G0s6f_bs&ll=51.505213496092054%2C-0.1285238120117249&z=12

I also highly recommend the Safe Cycle London map for route planning, which is compiled by @SafeCycleLDN on twitter:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1XlpvN9R-Wg7qZHyezO8y-eVlftr4e0WX&hl=en&ll=51.516975804561284%2C-0.21828576419061996&z=11

Hello and welcome back to London cycle routes today I’ll be showing you how to cycle from Finsbury Park in North London to Leighton in Northeast London this ride takes less than half an hour and you can do the whole thing on quiet streets and protected cycle Lanes by public transport the same

Journey also takes around half an hour so cycling is competitive way to make this journey it also got a lot easier recently after tfl installed protected cycle Lanes on a revamped Le Bridge roundabout so I’ll be showing you that later and talking about it in detail if you find this video useful or

You just enjoy watching it then please don’t forget to hit subscribe on the channel as I tried to post new videos just like it every week I’d also like to say a huge thank you to everyone who supports the channel on patreon if you’d like to contribute too then you can find

A link in the description below the video all right let’s get going so we’re starting at the main gate to Finsbury Park and we’re going to use the cycle crossing over Seven Sisters road to go into finsy Park Road there are some TS Water Works here that you’ll

Have to negotiate around and those Works have been there for around 4 years now and I have no idea when they’re going to be done they used to annoy me that they were taking so long but I’ve kind of made peace with it now and I’m thinking maybe

We should have a 5-year anniversary party for the road works as you can see the streets around here are really low traffic and quite enough that people clearly feel comfortable having their kids cycling around that’s because of closures like this which prevent motor traffic from using them as a through

Route this isn’t a recently installed low traffic neighborhood these closures have actually been around for quite a while at least a couple of decades I think but the concept of closing off through routs is similar and the result is also the same a really nice cycling environment and traffic sticking to the

Main roads and not using these back streets I think that this little connector here is probably good enough to be a cycle route it’s so low traffic but one thing that I would improve would be to take this zebra Crossing coming up on the left here and turn it into a

Parallel Crossing so that people cycling also have a safe way to get across that road there that we just crossed it was pretty quiet when we went over it just now but sometimes there is a little bit more traffic on it so do be careful as

You try and get across there make sure that you give way and look both ways another thing that could be improved is to take the old filters and just make them a little bit more permeable you can see the issue here with this fire gate design is that when cars park illegally

Along the clear sign it does actually block it that wouldn’t be so much of an issue if it was a Ballard closure which would be a lot easier to cycle through we’ve now made it onto green Lanes which has some lightly protected cycle Lanes running down it you can see that there

Are some patchy sections with very little protection but it’s mostly Wes like this along the whole route my understanding is that Hackney Council has plans to convert this into a slightly more substantially protected cycle Lane and they’ll be doing that in the next couple of years tfl funding

Pending hopefully when they do that they’ll improve the protection through the Junctions and the bus stops which is a little bit ropey but it does the job for us and we’re only on it for a short period of time we’ve now turned into the stone Newington low traffic neighborhood

And all the streets in this area are extremely calm for a similar reason to the area which we just went through which is that there are a lot of closures and bus Gates which prevent traffic from using it as a through route this is a really large low traffic

Neighborhood and even though it’s a relatively crisp day in March you can see loads of people are out cycling even with kids and families that will be a really consistent theme as we cycle through Hackney and walam Forest to our destination in Leighton these two bers

Have both done a pretty good job of putting in cycle infrastructure and calming traffic on their streets and as a result you just see people on bikes and walking everywhere where it’s a virtuous circle and that results in less traffic in itself because this first section of

Route is mostly picking away through the back streets of low traffic neighborhoods it can be a little bit confusing to follow even if you’ve watched this video if you need a digital map of the route you can download it in a link in the description below the

Video it comes in a GPX format and you can use it on whatever app or device you want I do provide maps for all the videos I do on this channel even if I forget to mention it in the video itself and if I do forget to mention it then

People usually ask so I try and remember Hackney actually has plans for three more low traffic neighborhoods in the near term and a bunch more after that the next three that it’ll be doing are in hawkton east dolon east of the A10 and Chatsworth Road just south of

Libridge Road they’ve been taking their time developing these ones but I’d expect to see plans for them after the London maril election in May one of the reasons I would guess for that timing is because the council is not allowed to announce any major policies during the election period which has just started

Talking of the A10 we’re just crossing it here now it can get quite busy so do be careful as you cross there it would be great to have some sort of improved signal or zebra Crossing to help people get across on this route we did run into

A little bit of traffic back there and that’s normal although a low traffic neighborhood is low traffic cars can still access it and sometimes just by Randomness a few of them will converge at the same time especially if one of them is trying to do some sort of

Reversing maneuver and holding them all up they tend to Bunch together a little bit talking of ltns we’re actually entering another one in a second we left the stock Newton one a minute ago and we’re now Crossing into the Hackney Downs low traffic neighborhood this has quietened down all the streets to the

North of Hackney Down’s Park which is running on our right just here if you want you could cycle on the path through the park here but the ltn means that Downs Road which we’re on now is just quite enough really for anyone to cycle on even if you do run into the odd

Pouting car but anyway I’m looking forward to those three new ltns I was talking about and I plan on doing lots of rots based off them as they will open quite a lot up when they are installed so if you want to see those roots do make sure you hit the Subscribe button

On the channel so that you’re alerted when I post them for now though hacky Downs ltn is letting us access a massive new piece of infrastructure that’s gone in in this part of town what I’m talking about is the revamped Le Bridge roundabout Le Bridge roundabout used to

Be absolutely horrible to cycle around in fact I tended to completely avoid it as it was a big fast busy road and it is still a big fast busy road but it now has protected cycle tracks running around it in all directions so it connects nicely from a protected Cycle

Way on the other side to this low traffic neighborhood which we’re in now that means that it opens up loads of new routes and is no longer longer a barrier to cycling it will open up even more when the dolon ltn goes in as that connects really nicely to the new le

Bridge roundabout as well apologies for the cut in the video there by the way I had to reshoot it as I made a wrong turn and the sun came out in the meantime we’re now on the Le Bridge roundabout and we want to go down Le Bridge Road so

We turn right here wait for the green light which is a little bit slow and then we head down the protected Lane here if you wanted to go to Clapton Road you could have just gone straight ahead and you’d have ended up there for such a useful and game-changing piece of

Infrastructure you’re only on it for a really short time but that’s how you know it’s good we’re now continuing down libridge road and in this Eastern Direction the path actually goes through milfield Recreation ground on the north side of the street if you’re making the this journey westbound then the cycle

Lane is actually on the road as well with a protected curb however as of March 2024 it is actually still under construction and only certain bits of it have been done which is probably why you do see some people cycling in the wrong direction on this side of the road I

Don’t personally mind too much as it is quite unusual for a path in a park to be a single directional track so I don’t really blame people for not understanding it especially when the other cycle Lane hasn’t actually been built yet hopefully that will be finished in the next couple of months it

Is actively been worked on and they’ve made good progress since I last came down here about a month or two ago what’s great about these protected Lanes being built and the Le Bridge roundabout is that they link wealth and forests amazing cycle Lane Network and ltn network into the rest of Central London

Network previously weal and Forest just forged ahead and built an amazing local network but it wasn’t connected to anything and this solves that problem the libridge roundabout was a massive barrier and it no longer is it does mean that in the future I’ll be doing lots more routes from places like walam stow

And Leighton into Central London and Beyond as it now connects up really nicely I’ve always been a huge fan of the really high quality way that w Forest builds its protected Lanes here and as you can see a lot of people agree and are happy to have their kids cycle

On it with them as well which I think is a brilliant thing to see for most of the rest of this route we’re going to be cycling directly straight up libridge road which has excellent protected cycle tracks just like this on both sides of the street they actually go all the way

Up to Woodford in more or less a straight line but we’re going to turn off them quite a bit earlier and I’m going to pick a very small Backstreet route through a low traffic neighborhood that will get us right into the center of high road Leighton right by the shops

Without having to go on any busy roads by the way there’s some good London cycle routs news in the works you probably haven’t been paying as much attention to this as I have but we are approaching 10,000 subscribers which is great news thank you so much to everyone

Who’s been watching Channel people who have subscribed left comments likeed videos and everyone who supports it on patreon as well you’re all fantastic and this thing has grown into something so much bigger than I ever thought it would do and I’m going to keep doing videos as

Long as people keep watching them now I understand it’s a YouTube tradition to do a question and answer video when you do hit 10,000 subscribers so I’m going to start collecting questions for that now so if you have any questions for for me to do with the channel or to do with

Anything really then just leave them in the comment below and I’ll make a list of them and when we do finally hit 10K whether that’s in a couple of weeks or a couple of months I will answer them in a video I’ll probably also wrap up some of

The common questions that people often ask below videos as well as they do keep coming back I probably won’t use it to do root suggestions and work out roots for people but do feel free to ask for those any any way and bring in suggestions or requests as I do try and

Do videos of them eventually where they’re possible or if anything they do just give me nice ideas for future routs and help me understand what people want to see but yeah do leave comments Below on what you’d like me to answer in the Q&A and I’ll make a note and I’ll come

Back to it when we hit 10,000 subscribers and if you’re not already subscribed then this is probably a good time to become one just hit the Subscribe button it’s free and all it does is put my YouTube videos on your YouTube homepage more often now we’re turning off fluid Road

Onto Dunton Road there is a drop curb there on the cycle track but just make sure that you’re waiting for a gap in the traffic as you cross the road fortunately it was relatively light traffic when I went across there so I could just cycle right on over at the

End of dunon road we turn left onto capworth street capworth street is mostly quiet but at the far end that we’ll be arriving at in a second there is a big test go with a car park which does attract a lot of people driving so

The traffic at this end of the street is a little bit busier than you’d like however we’re going to Dismount here as we are at the end of the video we’ve made it to High Road Leighton and we’re right outside Leighton Ledger Center and the shops so thank you so much for

Coming along on that with me if you look at the map here you will see it’s a pretty direct route uh especially the bit on Le rdge Road and it’s all possible because of the new le Bridge roundabout and protected Lanes which was previously a really big barrier do let

Me know in the comments what you think of the route and what you think of the libridge roundabout have you ridden on it what do you make of it the light timings are a little bit slow I thought but uh maybe you’ve got a different

Opinion and of course do let me know in the comments what you’d like me to answer in the upcoming Q&A if and when we make it to 10,000 subscribers if you’re not already subscribed hit subscribed and thank you so much again to everyone on the patreon if you’re

Feeling generous and you’d like to throw some money at me then you can find a link to the patreon in the description below the video I will see you guys all again next time thanks so much for watching goodbye