You can cycle from Covent Garden in central London to Finsbury Park in north London, entirely on quiet streets and protected cycle lanes.
The route is 7.8km long (4.9 miles) and makes use of the new Cycleway 50 on Seven Sisters Road, as well as the protected lanes on Gower Street and Tavistock Place, as well as other quiet streets and existing infrastructure.
If you find this video useful or you just enjoy watching it please remember to subscribe to the channel and hit the bell icon so you’re alerted to new videos, as I try to post new ones like it every week.
And if you like what the channel is doing, you can also contribute to the London Cycle Routes Patreon below. It really helps keep the channel going:
http://patreon.com/londoncycleroutes
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/1848432864?share_token=aKatsJxqYulTcWpoJIru72mP1KvtRyspkDCaKwBFzDnWD58Wbx&ref=wtd
And you can find a viewer-created and maintained map of all the London Cycle Routes videos here:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1h9Hxm57fPvZmcuSXajM_Wu0G0s6f_bs&ll=51.50521349609208%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=51.516975804561255%2C-0.21828576419061996&z=12
17 Comments
Great route, never thought it was that easy!
Black Books on the right at 4:37 📚🍷🤣
I've been using York Way to get between Hungerford and St Pancras as it looked slightly more direct. There's one section southbound without any infrastructure, although the council is doing some upgrades at the junction with Canal Reach. I'll definitely be giving the route via Camden Town a try!
you make cycling in ondon aear to be quite easy in the ate 8s I used to send the summers riding a big BMW motorcyce around london as a despatch rider snd my winters in Aircraft hangars doing maintenance and mods on airliners it never occurred to me to be a cycle desatch rider though yhey were sbout it would have reduced the overheads for the same reward though I ran my desatch sy and exenses through my Limited comany books which I used for sircraft contracting. now after a stroke in 2oo4I’m too disabled tnow to use either funding stream stream getting a state pension now I couldn’t afford to run a motorcycle now even if zi could ride itin oo2 I comutrd betewern csmbridge and stsnsted by bicyce it was 6 miles each way. which took me 4 hours I was very fit and being so fit save my ife when I had my dtroke in 2oo4 but I was only cycing 11 miles each way in 4 minutes then ! but the docs at the first hosita I went to said the ONy reasonnI survived was thtough bring do fit from a the cycling I could cyce just using my right hsnsd and srm but I think you reay need both hands snd arms to u down on the bars when cycling up steep hills. so you can it more force through yhe pedas whilst pulling yoursef down on the bars its good feeing the frame fexcas you’re doing yhis. but if I csn rver get my eft srm snd had back I wil go everywhere by bicycle -shain! becsuse cycing is more fun than driving this is at east party why I commuted 6 mirs to stansted if I set of at 06.30 I could get there for 1.30 in time to meet the girst B747-500F st the cargo termins st 1100. the troube is the ast sircraft eft at 22.30. meaning I didn’t get to bed much brfore 03.0 up again at 05.30 to fo it sll again so I was titred but very fit you csn vlsim more money per mile for cycling off tax than you can driving a car! so Zi was wuids in too! ( this was in 2002 taxabe allowances may hsve chsnged since then. it might be worth looking into for all the self emloyed cyclists out there! I was self emloyed mainlyvas a vontract aircraft engineer. I got my B747 vover at britidh airways then doubed my ay by becoming self rmployed as an sircraft contractor engineer us as a limited comany I didn’t have to pay much tax but I saved up ten yhoussnd quid beteween 1999 and z201. it al went wrong in 201 with 9/11. which nearly put girgin out of business the first thing they did was clsr their msnchester engineering base I had just bought a house a huge mortagsge and I eas out of work but I just had to work at stansted for a couple of yesrs to krep u hrnce the cycling between my digs in csmbrridge and stsnsted airport whilst ai had to get an Ammericsn quslification I had rnough ssved up yo pay thr mortgsge snd the course in Long Idsnd! but with a lot of work I survived my mistske was giving into my wife in 2002 a nd returning to msnchester because she didn’t ike me eorking away ftom home tsking a z sixteen thousand oind ay cut didn’t hel my wifes teaching wualification krt us going until I could get a decent contract at ksnvhester on the same rate I had enjoyed at birgin then on the 10 th of May 2004 I had a majorvstroke caused by a blood clot ai had picked up flying ecomomy with Thomas Cook. If I’d known about blood clots and strokes I would have booked business class! snd stiill worked u unti my 60d the brain was eiing but the body wasn’t
stil i have a state endion now so I don’t need to work but I do miss not being able to cycle though!
that’s something to work on!
I 100% agree about the Seven Sisters Road cycle lanes. It's clear that Islington were clearly prioritising commuters, which is strange given the drop in commuting after the pandemic. If Islington wants to encourage more people on their bikes, they need to provide viable options for biking locally, and I don't think splitting a cycle lane in two does that at all! I hope they realise the faults of this set up and fix it after the trial ends.
9:05 really cool looking houses/villas?!? On the right there! 👋🏽😮
can you do it from kingston uni to london center pls
Hey Jon – are you aware of any cycle routes from Guildford in the direction of London..?
Why was the one-way cycle lane made one-way in that direction, rather than the opposite direction?
Didn't know a cycleway 50 was being built. This looks so good. Keep these routes coming and you'll be able to cycle all over London (except Kensington & Chelsea) pretty soon!
I think you declare the next 2 weeks revision weeks where we all have to go back through the collection and warch the older videos we've not looked at before (which is quite fun when you find a bit which has now changed!) You could set us some homework to view a joined up set across London! Have a great holiday, which I hope is somewhere great for cycling.
You could upload something from your holiday. Don't mind if non-cycle route 😉
C50 needs a lot of work still!
A lot of the light phasing throughout this video is really frustrating for bikes, such as crossing Bedford Way/Tavistock Square.
Does Google maps or citymapper adapt to these new routes as they are built? This is really good content as ever
Nice route! Really like how cycling is coming along in London, surprises me every time I visit.
About the motion detectors; in the Netherlands we have similar systems, but they detect with a loop in the road, those work fine. Often they're positioned both at the junction and 10 metres before, so a lot of the times it detects you from a distance and gives you a green, so you never have to stop. The amount of times I was forced to stop in London was a bit disappointing tbh; especially a lot of signalised ped-cycle crossings, which here would just be a zebra path, seeing as speeds are so low that pedestrians just cross.
I do my daily commute with my ebike from kings cross area to seven sisters, so here's my takes:
– I never thought about turning left towards Warlters rd at the end of Caledonian road, so I'd always turn left onto Hillmarton and join Parkhurst/seven sisters early. Then I'd be on the bus lane already so there's no great opportunity to join the cycle lane on the right so I always just stay on the left. Truth be told, until now I was convinced that this cycle lane was actually supposed to be taken the other way around. Especially since the one time I took it I was shouted at by random cyclists going in the opposite direction on it – and I'd never taken it when going towards central London as the route gets you to turn left from seven sisters rd just after the railway viaduct.
These days I just avoid the Finsbury Park area altogether by going via Gillespie road instead. Much nicer and quieter.
I don't think the old church on North Villas/Camden Park Road is a recording studio. The non residential bit is split up into three workspaces, not sure what they're currently actually used for. The recording studio called The Church Studios is in Crouch End.